


for neither never nor ever

by fairytalelights



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: (as in the Netflix show), Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Coming of Age, Dark, Explicit Sexual Content, Family Loss, First Kiss, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Identity Issues, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mentions of HIV/AIDS, Mystery, Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2021-01-24 06:13:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 28,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21333568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairytalelights/pseuds/fairytalelights
Summary: Then Harry looked down. A newspaper was on the steps in front of him, looking new, like it had only just gotten delivered but no one had bothered to carry it inside yet.That, in itself, wasn't unusual. The unusual thing was the headline,Chernobyl - Half a Year Later, and the date in the corner.5th November 1986.He looked up to stare at the girl in the doorway one last time, before he did the only logical thing his body knew how to do in this situation. He bolted.or, the one where Harry travels through time and has to come to terms with losing everything he's ever known. Louis might be the only thing that feels real.
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson
Comments: 56
Kudos: 164
Collections: HL TV SHOW FIC FEST 2019





	1. The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> This is my longest fic to date and I couldn't have done it without the support of a few people! Kris, thank you for comparing wordcounts with me, motivating me, listening to rambling voice messages and being this fic's biggest supporter! Also that moodboard you made for the tumblr post is a piece of art, I love you!! Kathi, thank you for enduring all that writing talk in the groupchat; Babsi, thank you for checking if I could show this fic to people unfamiliar with the show and being so nice about it; Niki, you're the best beta reader I could hope for and you always manage to find my stupid mistakes!
> 
> Now onto the content: This is my spin on the Netflix show Dark. You CAN however, read this fic whether you have watched the show or not.
> 
> **If you have never seen an episode of Dark before:** The thing you need to know for this fic is actually just that time travel exists and it's complicated. It's not explained in detail in this fic, because I just took a small side plot out of the show and only provided the information necessary to understand that small side plot!  
This fic could include spoilers for the first season of Dark and maybe a tiny tiny detail of season 2, but only if you're really good at deciphering which parts I took from canon and which parts I invented. It's 100% meant for people who haven't watched the show yet, I see it as a sort of teaser. Please don't expect the show to be anything like this fic though, I've taken a lot of liberties. 
> 
> **If you have seen the show:** You may notice that I've given Louis the role of Hannah but I need to stress that he is not actually Hannah, he is still Louis and would never do half of the things Hannah does in the show. Also, small spoiler: There is no suicide in this fic. The beginning may seem very similar and I have actually pulled some dialogue from the show there! But it becomes my own story very soon afterwards, so don't worry!
> 
> And guys, this is a love story! It is, in its core, about Harry and how he deals with his situation. Every other sideplot from Dark is glossed over. For any and all time travel mystery related questions, I'm afraid you're going to have to rely on the show, because I don't attempt to answer most of the questions the show raises! If you do have more questions though, I'm always happy to talk, either here in the comments or on [Tumblr](https://lookslikefairytale.tumblr.com/ask).
> 
> Now, without further ado, enjoy reading!

_November 4th, 2019. Harry is 11._

“Harry, you can't go to school dressed like that,” Anne sighed, sceptically eyeing her son's outfit. It was less of an outfit and more of a remnant from his Halloween costume a week ago, a black jumpsuit with the outline of a skeleton on it. It had been funny a week ago. Now, not so much anymore.

“A good magician needs his own special style,” Harry stated, in the way that he'd been saying most things lately, as if he were far too wise for his eleven years. The skeleton jumpsuit stood in stark contrast to that.

“Change your clothes. Thank you,” Anne pushed him gently towards the stairs again. She sometimes wondered if other mothers had to face this specific brand of problems as well, or if her son was just special. Maybe it was time for him to finally hit puberty properly.

“These are my work clothes!” Harry argued. “You know, I think school just sucks!”

The jumpsuit was a bit too big on him, the hood almost hanging over his eyes. It also, for some reason, invoked a strange sense of déjà-vu, a hint of dread coiling in her stomach at the sight of it that she couldn't explain. She shook her head at her own ridiculousness. It was, after all, not a very scary Halloween costume.

“I'm sure the great Hodini went to school, whether he liked it or not,” Anne argued, already moving in the direction of the kitchen again. This breakfast wasn't going to make itself.

“He's called _Hou_dini, mum! It's not that hard to remember!” Harry called after her. He still hadn't made a move to go upstairs again.

Anne attempted to ignore him in order to try and persuade Gemma to have some breakfast before school.

“Mum, I'm on hunger strike!” she protested when Anne tried to give her a croissant. “As long as a child starves to death every ten seconds I don't plan on eating!”

Anne sighed. Whose idea had it been to have these children? Must have been her ex-husband's.

“Okay. Harry, one more magic trick, then off to school. Gemma, starving won't help anyone.” She pressed a bread roll into her hands this time instead.

Then she sat down in front of Harry, motioning for him to get on with his magic trick. It couldn't hurt to encourage him once in a while.

He put two cups on the table, upside down, with a look of utter concentration on his face. She felt an enormous amount of fondness well up in her at the sight of it, almost glad she had indulged him again. She would never tire of seeing her children being unapologetically passionate about the things they liked.

Making sure she was paying attention, Harry showed her a small toy figure going under one of the cups. He tapped both cups a few times, then lifted the second one. The toy figure had appeared underneath it.

“Wow!” Anne exclaimed, despite having him seen do the same trick a few times now. “How did you do that?”

Harry folded his hands and looked at her with a serious look on his face. “The question isn't how, mum. The question is when.”


	2. The Middle

_November 4th, 2019. Harry is 11._

The _Missing! Has anyone seen this boy?_ posters had been up for almost two weeks now and slowly but surely Harry was becoming used to the sight of them. Eric's picture, prominent and centre on every single one of them, was already looking faded. He didn’t actually know much about Eric despite the fact that he was Gemma’s age, but this was Holmes Chapel. Everyone kind of knew everyone in a way.

Harry knew his mum and Gemma tried their best to shield him from everything, but even their best efforts couldn't stop him from noticing the tense atmosphere in town since it happened, the curious looks strangers were giving each other in the streets now.

Holmes Chapel was a small town, but it had never felt like this much of a small town before. It had always been something that made Harry feel comfortable. Safe. Now, he was feeling watched somehow.

But it also – and Harry was feeling guilty just for _thinking_ it – felt _exciting_ in a way. Missing kids weren't something that usually happened in Holmes Chapel. This was maybe the first not-boring thing that had happened to him, ever. Not that he'd ever say that out loud. There was just a tiny part of his brain which knew that a lot of detective novels started this way.

“Gemma, I've left some money by the phone so you can order pizza. The parents' evening is probably going to take a while tonight. Everyone's concerned about the school's safety precautions I'm guessing, and I'm gonna have to explain myself to them.” His mum sighed. “Take care of Harry.”

Gemma nodded solemnly, as if babysitting was the worst fate that could have befallen her tonight.

“Not a baby anymore,” Harry grumbled when his mum pressed a kiss into his hair, then Gemma's. Anne chose to ignore his remark, instead giving them a last little wave before disappearing out of the door.

Gemma didn't look like she was going to settle down for a quiet evening in, though. Instead, she paced up and down the floor a few times, before stopping in front of the table, where Harry had been practising his magic tricks again.

“Okay little bro, here's the deal. I have a- well, kind of an obligation I can't get out of. Or don't want to get out of. The problem is, it's kind of… well, it's in the forest. I'm meeting up with Darcy and the others there. Obviously I can't leave you here alone…”

Harry had already opened his mouth to protest, but then closed it again as she finished her sentence. A trip to the forest didn't sound that bad. And he liked Gemma's friends, sometimes they almost treated him like he was one of them.

“Obviously,” he repeated.

“So,” Gemma said, pulling a grimace as if it pained her to get the words out. “I'm gonna take you with me.”

“Okay,” Harry grinned and ran up to get his jacket. He could almost feel Gemma's gaze following him, as she surely regretted every decision that had led her to this point.

No matter. Harry was finally going to be part of an actual _adventure_.

☣ ☣ ☣

“Why did you bring him?” Matt, one of Gemma's friends, hissed at her as soon as they arrived. They were still on the outcasts of the forest, but the trees were already looming over them on one side. The thought of going right into that darkness made Harry's stomach churn. He wondered if people in adventure novels sometimes felt the same desire to be at home in their beds instead. A slight drizzle of rain was coming down around them consistently, making it feel even colder than it actually was.

“Hi Darcy! Ultimate fist bump?” Harry chose to ignore Matt and greeted one of Gemma's other, much nicer, friends instead. They were a smaller group than he had expected, just Matt and Darcy waiting for them at the small river that marked the forest entrance.

“Hi darling,” Darcy smiled as she softly knocked her fist against his. “Are you starting a new fashion trend?” she asked, amused, as she eyed his skeleton onesie.

Harry huffed, offended. “It's my magician's outfit,” he explained. Darcy nodded seriously. Not that she had much room to talk, she was wearing a bright yellow raincoat. Probably also not the newest fashion trend.

“I'm sorry I had to bring him,” he heard Gemma say, a bit louder this time. “Now can we please go? I don't wanna die in this forest.”

It was an ill-timed joke, considering it was in all likelihood where Eric had disappeared two weeks ago. Everyone let out an awkward chuckle anyway, because most of Gemma's friends just liked to indulge her. Matt probably had a secret crush on her, that douchebag.

“Let's just get Eric's fucking drugs and get out of here,” Matt said. “This place gives me the creeps.”

_Drugs?_ Harry looked at Gemma, a bit incredulous. He was so going to demand bribes for not telling mum about this.

Gemma just shot him a short look, slight panic in her eyes. Harry suspected she wasn't feeling that great about having to bring him either.

☣ ☣ ☣

“What do you guys think happened to Eric?” Harry asked after a few minutes of walking, the forest quiet around them, the silence broken only by the sticks cracking underneath their feet. It was haunting, in a way. He pulled his onesie closer around him.

“Kids in our class are saying someone kidnapped him and has him locked up in some basement somewhere.”

“Shut up,” Matt responded flippantly, but it sounded weaker than his usual insults, even to Harry's ears. “He just ran away.”

“But it could be that he's trapped, you know, locked up somewhere and he can't get out,” Harry insisted. “Why would somebody do that?” he shivered. “Grab someone and lock 'em up?”

Gemma sighed. “Well, even if our mum tells us that most people are nice, there are some real creeps out there that are anything but nice.”

“My dad always says good and evil is a matter of perspective,” Darcy offered quietly from the background. She didn't add to that, so they all fell quiet again for a few moments.

“So what if Eric's no longer alive?” Harry couldn't just let it go, no matter how hard he tried. “What if he's lying dead somewhere and no one finds his body? That would just be the worst.” He gulped. “Even if you're dead, you want to be found at least.”

“No one is dead, and no one won't be found, okay?” Gemma snapped. “Can we change the subject now?”

☣ ☣ ☣

“I'm bored,” Harry sighed after what felt like another eternity. He knew he was being annoying but he suddenly didn't care that much about fitting in with Gemma and her cool, older friends anymore. He was cold and Gemma's friends weren't very talkative. “Can't we just go home now?”

“We're nearly there,” Matt reassured him.

Gemma didn't say anything. Harry guessed she was also not entirely sure about this whole trip to the woods anymore.

“Over there,” Matt suddenly pointed at an old, abandoned pile of furniture someone had dropped carelessly near the trees. They had reached the caves. 'The heart of Holmes Chapel' his mum used to call them.

They bordered the nuclear power station and people used to say there was no way those caves weren't vibrating with radioactivity by now. Harry thought they were a bit creepy, especially in the dark.

“In the armchair.” Matt jumped up to the pile of furniture to search it, presumably for the drugs everyone kept talking about. The light rain had stopped, but it was still dark and cold, the only light source coming from their flashlights.

After a bit of searching, he looked up again, empty-handed. “Fuck!” Matt swore and kicked the armchair.

Gemma went to cover Harry's ears, but he batted her hands away, annoyed.

“They were here, I know it!” Matt was still staring at the furniture as if it had personally swallowed the pile of drugs.

“Looking for these?” they looked up to find a girl standing in the entrance to the caves. Harry recognized her as another one of Gemma's friends. Francine, maybe? He couldn't recall. She was holding up an entire bag of pills. Harry's eyes widened.

“That's mine,” Matt took an angry step towards her, but before he could reach her, there was a loud rumbling noise. Harry instinctively looked up, expecting thunder and lightning, but the sky was still clear. The noise came from the caves.

“What's that?” Matt asked, fright clear in his voice.

“It was probably nothing, let's just go,” Gemma pulled at Harry's hand, but he didn't budge. Everyone else was staying rooted to their spots as well.

There was a swelling of noise until the strange sounds seemed to be all around them, a crackling in the woods, almost as if someone was there_ with them_.

Their flashlights began to flicker. Harry started to shake. He tried to remind himself that this was how all of his favourite adventure novels started, but it didn't help much.

And then, there was _lightning_ in the cave entrance somehow, flickers of lights filling out the whole cave, the sound of electric static buzzing in Harry's ears. Over all of that, the other noises from the woods didn't stop. In that moment, Harry was sure there was someone there with them.

“Run!” one of the girls shouted, and they all seemed to be shaken out of their stupor, running back into the forest as fast as they could. Harry only hoped someone knew the way, because the only thought in his head was _get away from the caves_.

“Go, go, go!” he heard Gemma shout, seemingly miles away from him already.

Darcy's yellow raincoat was in front of him the whole time, until suddenly, it wasn't, for just a moment. He slowed down, looking around in panic, before she grabbed his hand, and pulled him with him, much more force behind her grip than he would have thought a skinny 15-year-old possessed.

“Quick, this way,” Darcy shouted, leading him down another confusing passage of trees. “There's clearly something, _someone _evil in this forest,” she said, urgency in her voice. Harry nodded along. That much he'd gathered. She led him down a confusing passage of trees, until, inexplicably, they were back at the cave entrance. It wasn't alight with electricity anymore, but Harry couldn't tell if the thundering around them was still coming from the caves or not.

“This is the only safe place,” she urged, pulling him deeper into the caves, until they were standing in front of some sort of door. It looked harmless in here, in contrast to the outside, where a supposed thunderstorm was going on. Harry wondered if that was the explanation for the lightning he had seen inside the caves a few minutes ago.

“Go on, you're smaller than me. Climb through that tunnel.”

Harry nodded. He didn't know why, but he trusted Darcy.

“We're going to have to stay here all night probably. But when it's morning, we can come out. Everything's gonna be alright in the morning,” she choked out, squeezing his hands. She looked shaken. “I _promise_.”

Harry believed her.

☣ ☣ ☣

_Morning. Harry is 11. Louis is 13._

In the morning, Darcy was gone. Harry couldn't remember falling asleep, but he must have at some point, exhaustion winning out over the cold and the adrenaline high. But now, it must have been morning; there was sunlight.

The light was slowly creeping in at first, but getting brighter and brighter with each passing minute that Harry kept sitting there, too afraid to move.

Finally, he remembered Darcy's words. It was morning. It had to be alright now. Even if she wasn't here now, she must have already gone to find help.

Irrationally, he wished for his mum to come and find him, even if Gemma would call him a baby because of it.

He kept sitting there for a few moments, before he slowly stood up and tried to make his way out of the caves. It had been so dark yesterday, Harry had no idea how he had gotten in there.

Finally, following the small sources of light, he made it out of the cave. There, he stumbled forward a few metres before he stopped again. The woods looked… _different._ It had been dark yesterday, so he wasn't quite sure, but in the light of day, they seemed to be looming in on him even more, dark and uncomfortable. He couldn't see the pile of furniture where Gemma's friends had fought yesterday. Maybe he was at another exit from the caves. Maybe he would get lost in this forest and never find his way home again.

Harry started to run. The daylight that had seemed so inviting earlier was only a slight grey shadow now, there was no sun coming in through the trees, the atmosphere gloomy around him. He didn't know if he could run the entire way back home, but the rush of panic and adrenaline was back and pushing him forward, even if Harry didn't quite know where it was coming from now. To still be afraid was unreasonable. It was daylight now.

☣ ☣ ☣

His house looked different when he walked up to it.

There were different cars parked around it, making him wonder if his mum had guests. _Highly_ unusual though, the only guests his mum ever had were friends and neighbours from around the town and they usually lived within walking or biking distance.

Harry was still staring at the car parked in the driveway, when he absentmindedly tried to unlock their front door. Except… it wouldn't budge. He started to try and push the key further in, shake and twist it a bit, when the door opened from the inside.

A woman was standing in front of him, but it wasn't Gemma or his mum, instead someone who looked eerily similar to both of them.

“Who are you?” he blurted out.

The woman, or, more accurately, _the girl_, now that he was getting a better look at her, let out a small laugh.

“I think the better question is, who are you, darling?” She did that annoying thing that adults or older kids sometimes did, where she lowered herself slightly to speak to him. His mum had a habit of doing it as well. He wasn't a _baby_ anymore.

“Harry,” he answered, dumbfounded. “I live here.”

She chuckled. “I'm sorry, but I live here. Can I call someone for you? Your mum must be so worried for you!”

Harry stared at her with wide eyes, this stranger, standing in his house, that looked so different, telling him he didn't live there. For a moment, he was frozen. It was as if the thundering noises from yesterday were back, but now only in head, and ten times louder instead.

Then he looked down. A newspaper was on the steps in front of him, looking new, like it had only just gotten delivered but no one had bothered to carry it inside yet.

That, in itself, wasn't unusual. The unusual thing was the headline, _Chernobyl - Half a Year Later_, and the date in the corner.

_5th November 1986._

He looked up to stare at the girl in the doorway one last time, before he did the only logical thing his body knew how to do in this situation. He bolted.

☣ ☣ ☣

This was impossible. The whole thing must have been a giant mistake, something he could probably laugh about later. Maybe he was dreaming. Maybe someone had broken into their house.

There was only one place left to go, one place where he could still find his mum. Her voice saying, “_Always call the school if there's an emergency,_” was still very present in his mind. Jumbled in with other messy thoughts about newspapers and caves, it was the only clear one he could form right now.

The school looked, to Harry's relief, almost the same. He hadn't been able to find his bike even though he was sure he'd left it at the pavement in front of his house, and now he was exhausted after walking the whole way. There was also a dull throb coming from his arm that he was too afraid to focus on right now, but at least the school was still there. No one had stolen it and replaced it with a shrill version of itself, although the students certainly looked like it. The clothes all around Harry were brightly coloured, frilly skirts and high waisted jeans. He felt like he was in a music video.

The details were all beginning to make frightening sense but he didn't want to think about it yet, _couldn't_. He needed to keep going.

Inside the school, he was lost. It had looked the same from the outside, so similar it was easy to pretend everything was normal after all, but inside, the entire interior had changed. The white coloured walls were now a pale yellow, the lockers a bright orange instead of the dark blue he was used to. He kept walking, through the crowded hallway. The only thing he had to do was find his mum's office. Then she would take him home and everything would be alright again.

“What are you doing here, weirdo, never seen a school before?” a boy, maybe a bit older than him, but not by much, sneered at him from the side. Harry was aware of how he must look, his face dirty from falling down in the forest a few too many times, his clothes torn, his hair messy.

“Shut up Calvin,” a voice next to the rude boy hissed, whacking his friend on the back of his head. His friend sent him a glare but didn't react otherwise.

“Are you new here?” the nicer one of the two now turned to Harry with a slight smile. He had shaggy brown hair and piercing blue eyes. _Kind_ eyes. For a moment, Harry found himself wondering why he'd never seen him around school before. Surely, he would have noticed someone like him. Then he remembered the strange new world he was trapped in.

Harry shook his head. “I… I'm looking for my mum,” he got out eventually.

The other boy, Calvin, laughed. “This isn't kindergarten.”

“She's the principal here,” Harry now desperately tried to make him understand.

“Mr. Hubert is your mum?” Calvin got out through fits of laughter. “Well, that would explain-”

“Calvin, don't you have class?” the other boy interrupted him. “Hi, I'm Louis,” he turned towards Harry. “Can you tell me your name, love?”

“Harry,” he said meekly. Vaguely, he remembered telling the girl at his house the same thing earlier. It hadn't done him a lot of good so far, no one seemed to recognize him.

Harry resisted the urge to scream. “Can I ask you something?” he got out instead. This was his last lifeline.

Louis nodded, confused.

“What day is it today?” Harry asked.

“The 5th of November,” Louis answered, raising his eyebrows.

“And…” now Harry almost had to choke back tears. “What year?”

Louis' eyebrows climbed even higher. “1986.”

Harry gulped and looked down at the ground, trying desperately to school his expression into something normal, trying to pretend as if his world and everything he ever believed in wasn't crashing down around him right now.

“Can I call someone to help you?” Louis asked after Harry didn't add anything to his weird request, pointedly shooting his friend a stern look. Calvin just shrugged and turned away, clearly not wanting to bother with this anymore now that Louis had actively gotten himself involved.

Harry shook his head, almost desperately. He couldn't cry, not here, not now. He made a move to turn away again, but at the last moment, Louis grabbed his wrist. The dull, throbbing pain from earlier suddenly felt like someone had stabbed a knife through his arm and Harry couldn't suppress a small scream that he immediately tried to muffle in the shirt sleeves on his non-injured side.

“That's it,” Louis decided. “I'm getting you to the nurse's office. She can help you, I promise.”

Harry could only nod and let himself be pulled along. He was too tired to fight anymore.

☣ ☣ ☣

At least the hospital still smelled like a hospital. The sheets around him were too white and too clean, but at least his arm didn't hurt that much anymore and the painkillers had dulled all emotional pain for a while as well. His name tag said “Harold” on it, because that's how Louis had jokingly introduced him to the school nurse and Harry hadn't bothered to correct him. No last name, because Harry hadn't given that one up.

The school nurse had clearly been confused by the fact that he wasn't a student at the school, and Harry had refused to say another word after his few attempts at talking had gone so spectacularly wrong earlier, so she had called reinforcement. Which was how Harry ended up in an actual hospital where he got a bandage for his arm and a bed until someone decided what to do with him.

The nice nurse who'd patched him up earlier, Barbara, had promised him that he could stay at the hospital for a while until he was ready to talk, ready to tell her his full name or his address, or anything at all really. Harry knew it wouldn't do him any good though. He had tried to deny it before, but saying that his name was Harry Edward Styles, rattling off his address where that nice girl with the long hair probably lived with her family, it wouldn't do him any good.

He choked out the small sentence, “I'm from the future,” earlier, mostly just to hear his mouth form the actual words. It hadn't gotten him anything except an eyebrow raise from Barbara. There'd been so much pity in her gaze, Harry could have drowned in it. _Poor traumatized kid_, that look said. It didn't say, _Let's get him back to his own time as quickly as possible._

So since talking and asking for help clearly wasn't an option, Harry needed a Plan B. He had peered out of the window earlier, and realized that his room was only one story above ground. He could make that jump. _Probably_.

He got pulled out of his thoughts by a sudden loud bang outside his door and the lights starting to flicker. The drumming noise in Harry's head that had never quite gone away all day long seemed to be getting louder again as well.

He had to resist the urge to curl himself up into a ball and press his hands to his ears until the moment passed, but he knew he couldn't waste this opportunity. He had to _get back_.

When he peeked through the door, he saw Nurse Barbara and other members of the hospital staff running around frantically, most likely to find solutions for dealing with the power outage. Harry probably wasn't on top of their list of priorities right now.

He opened the window, glanced sceptically at the bandage on his arm for a moment, then shrugged. He jumped.

☣ ☣ ☣

The way to the caves was easier to find this time, even though it was dark again. It was like everything in him seemed to be pulling towards that place. Towards _home_.

The atmosphere felt like it had yesterday evening, with Gemma and her friends. Except this time, Harry was alone, and it hadn't actually been yesterday but 33 years from now instead. It was raining instead of drizzling now, in the way that it sometimes did in Holmes Chapel, where Harry felt like the world was going to end. This time, he wasn't scared of it though. His world had already ended, what more could it take from him?

Despite that, he kept running the whole way to the caves, afraid to somehow not reach them, to miss his opportunity. There were noises all around him again now. Some of it must have been the rain, but some of it sounded like electricity crackling again, sounded like thunder and darkness. Everything was as it had been after they had run from the caves, except Darcy's yellow raincoat wasn't in front of him. He wondered if he'd ever see it again.

Harry only slowed down when he reached the cave entrance again, then looked around one last time, frightened. It wasn't as if he was scared someone from the hospital had followed him there, but he knew he'd still be in trouble if he was found out here, alone. It wouldn't help that he technically didn't live in this town anymore (_yet_) and wouldn't give the name of his parents. He kept running.

☣ ☣ ☣

The cave looked the same as it had this morning. The inside of it was damper than yesterday, probably due to the heavy rain, and it also felt colder. Harry kept walking inside, freezing in his hospital pyjamas, his only source of light a small lighter he had stolen from Nurse Barbara. He was going to give it back… at some point. If he didn't… if he saw her again.

This time, walking through the caves, Harry felt as if he was stuck in a labyrinth, one without a right way and only dead ends.

At some point, when he finally thought _oh, this might seem familiar_, he slipped on a few stones, stumbled, and slid at least four meters deep until his leg caught on a rock. There was an ugly cracking sound as his foot made contact.

Pain shot through Harry's body, sudden and sharp.

He looked at his leg in shock for a few moments, and then, overwhelmed and scared, realizing that whatever had brought him here wasn't going to bring him back, he finally, for the first time today, properly started to cry. There was blood on his leg where the rest of the rock had sliced his skin open, and Harry kept staring at it as desperate sobs wracked his body, no feeling left inside of him except despair. No one was coming to help him. No one was coming to get him back home.

There were a few loud banging sounds, and Harry tried calling out through his sobs, tried to see if someone would answer. Of course, no one did. So he pulled his knees to his chest, buried his head in his arms and let the waves of misery rush over him. The noises stopped at some point, but Harry didn't notice it much. It was hard to hear anything over his sobs and the beating of his own heart.

Hours later, his crying finally stopped, but Harry didn't feel better, just empty. It felt like he had nothing left to give. After a while of sitting there, the air cold and damp around him, as it always seemed to be here, he realized that there was no choice but to go back to the hospital now, the only place where he could go. His way home seemed to be forever closed. He had well and truly lost everything.

When Harry exited the cave, he stumbled over something on the ground. He gulped.

There were three dead birds in front of him.

☣ ☣ ☣

_November 6th,1986. Harry is 11. Louis is 13._

Harry had been in the hospital once before, when he was nine, to get his appendix removed. He remembered the food tasting the exact same back then. It should be sad, the realization that hospital food would always be bland, no matter what year, but instead Harry clung to these few anchors of things that hadn't changed. The company who produced their daily newspaper was still the same. People still used the local nuclear power station as one of the leading small-talk topics. The vending machine still had some of the chocolate bars it would have in 33 years.

Harry had a bit of change to spend entirely on candy, mostly due to Nurse Barbara sneaking him some coins this morning. It had probably been a bribe to get him to talk, which hadn't worked. He knew that the longer he stayed silent, the more likely some adults would just make some decisions for him, without him having any say in the matter. Maybe that was for the best though. Maybe he shouldn't be able to decide things anymore. It hadn't helped him so far.

At least, now that his leg was broken and he was hopping around on crutches all day, he properly deserved to be in the hospital. Maybe they would let him stay for a few more days. Barbara had of course, asked how he'd broken his leg when he showed up again this morning, dishevelled, eyes still red from crying, but he'd stayed just as silent on the topic as he did on everything else.

Harry stared at the vending machine again. Another thing that clearly hadn't changed was the functionality of these things. His chocolate bar was stuck.

Just when he considered resorting to pounding against it with his non-injured arm, a voice behind him shouted, “Harold!” It sounded entirely too cheery for Harry's current mood. He looked up.

Louis, the boy who'd been nice to him at the school, was standing in front of him. Vaguely, Harry remembered asking for his mum, the year, and being teary-eyed during their entire first meeting. He flushed with embarrassment.

Louis, clearly also headed for the vending machine, came to a sudden halt.

“It's not working,” Harry informed him, dejectedly staring at his chocolate bar that was just a few inches away from falling down.

Louis looked at it for a while. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, he asked, “Do you know what I imagine sometimes?”

Harry just looked at him, curious.

“That I can do magic,” Louis said softly, still staring at the chocolate bar. “I imagine something that I really want, really badly, and then it happens because I imagined it. Like moving that chocolate bar.”

Harry didn't know why he suddenly had to blink away tears at Louis' words. He wished it was that easy for him.

“Do you know Houdini?” he asked Louis softly.

“Who?” Louis blinked.

“Harry Houdini, one of the world's greatest magicians.”

Louis shook his head. Harry gestured to the fifty pence coin Louis was holding, clearly meant for the vending machine. Louis gave it to him, only a bit hesitant.

“There is no such thing as magic,” Harry said, putting the coin into his open palm. “Just illusion.” He opened his other palm. “Things only change when we change them.” He closed his fist over the coin. It was harder to do it with the bandage on his arm, but he was determined to seem cool in front of Louis. Not that anyone except for his mum had ever actually thought his magic tricks were cool before.

“But it has to be skillful, in secret.” He performed some complicated hand gestures. Louis looked at him, enraptured.

“Then it seems like magic,” Harry concluded and opened his palm. The coin had been transferred from one palm to the other.

Louis let out a noise of delight. “Where did you learn that?”

“I come from the future,” Harry grinned, glad to be able to say it, even if Louis would see it as a joke.

“You're cool,” Louis smiled at him. Harry blushed. No one had ever said that to him.

“Now, I'm gonna show you a magic trick though,” Louis stated and punched against the glass of the vending machine, three times. Then he kicked it once. The chocolate bar fell down.

Harry laughed in wonder. “Okay, yours was better.”

“Nah,” Louis said, taking the fifty pence back from him. “I'd say our magic skills are pretty even.”

He put the coin into the vending machine. Unsurprisingly, the chocolate bar got stuck again, not moving an inch even after Louis tried his “magic trick” again.

“Here,” Harry smiled at him, breaking his chocolate bar in half. “We can share mine.”

☣ ☣ ☣

Louis, Harry had learned, wasn't actually in the hospital because he was sick, but because his mum worked there as a midwife and Louis was just accompanying her sometimes while his sisters – he had four of them – were at daycare or still in school.

“It's mostly just sitting around in the waiting room a lot and trying to escape the nurse who's charged with keeping an eye on me,” Louis had shrugged. Harry thought it would be rude to ask if he'd prefer it if his mum wouldn't take him then.

After Louis had left, Nurse Barbara visited him in his room again. “I saw your friend,” she smiled. “Where do you know him from?”

Harry shrugged. He knew she hoped for some more information about his life, and he felt bad about lying to her. So he just said as little as possible so he wouldn't have to.

“Met him at the school yesterday,” he volunteered. Barbara looked at him with that curious look she wore sometimes, like she was trying to understand him, but couldn't. Harry knew he was being difficult, but he couldn't help it.

“Harry,” Barbara started softly. He could hear from her tone that the small-talk was done now and this was the actual reason she had come to talk to him. “A woman from child protective services spoke to me today. They are going to take you with them to a nice home in a few days. There will be other kids your age there. And they…” she looked at a spot somewhere near his ear, probably to avoid looking him in the eyes. “The staff there will be able to attend very specifically to your needs.”

_Because you've clearly been through some kind of trauma and you won't tell us what it is_, she didn't say. Harry almost laughed. An orphanage. His parents weren't dead, he almost wanted to shout. They just didn't know they were his parents yet.

As usual though, he didn't say anything. There was nothing to say.

Barbara sighed. There was pity in her gaze. “They are coming on Wednesday,” she told him, sounding as reluctant about it as he felt. It was Thursday, so almost a week from now. “Try not to worry about it.” She squeezed his hand, then left the room again.

Harry felt like crying again. It was becoming a regular feeling these days.

☣ ☣ ☣

The next few days were dragging along, the dull routine that was hospital life when you didn't get any visitors.

The only one who stopped by every time she could, was Nurse Barbara. She sat with him for an hour sometimes, indulging his stupid magic tricks. She almost made Harry smile a few times.

“As a kid, the only dream Houdini had was to be a magician,” he told her one evening, while showing her the same cup trick that he'd shown to his mum at least four times before.

“Do you have that same dream?” she asked, kindness in her voice, as always.

Harry nodded sadly. “Yeah,” he said. “But the magic I wanna do, can't be done.”

“Meaning what exactly?” Barbara asked.

Harry sighed, knowing which look he would get if he said what he was thinking. He told her the truth anyway.

“I just want to finally wake up.”

Barbara looked at him, her eyes shining a bit. He'd been right about the look.

☣ ☣ ☣

_November 12th, 1986. Harry is 11._

Wednesday came quicker than expected and soon Harry was sitting on his bed, dressed in clothes that weren't actually his, another bag full of them next to him. He didn't know where Barbara got them from, but they smelled new. He hadn't known how to properly thank her, so he just smiled at her a lot and hoped she got the message.

“Don't you worry, he will be just fine,” he heard a foreign voice say when the door opened. He didn't bother to turn around. He sincerely doubted he'd be “just fine”.

“You can always come and visit him,” he heard the strange woman assure Nurse Barbara. He'd actually love that, but he doubted Barbara would want to. She had a job here, a life. She probably didn't have time to visit every lost patient in the children's ward.

“I'm here to take you to your new home. There's lots of other children there,” the woman called out to Harry now, sounding forcedly cheerful. Harry still didn't turn around.

He could feel the silence in the room getting awkward, the woman having no idea how to talk to him. “Can you hear me?” the woman's voice sounded again, this time slightly angry, but before he could say anything, give up his silence, Nurse Barbara interrupted the woman.

“Come with me,” he heard Barbara say softly, clearly directed at the woman. “Let's talk.”

The door closed behind them.

A few minutes later Barbara came back inside. She sat down next to him on the bed.

“So, Harry.” She smiled at him, as she always did, the only thing that made sense in this whole place.

“I know nothing about this is ideal, and you can definitely say no if you don't want to, but…” Barbara took a deep breath. “I've told the woman from child protective services she doesn't need to come back if you don't want her to.”

She waited until he looked up at her with wide eyes. “I want to take care of you,” she stated bluntly.

“And she assured me it's going to be difficult and I can't guarantee anything, but for the moment, I've been granted provisional custody, until everything is fixed. The most important thing in this is _your_ decision though. Do you…” she trailed off. “Is that something you might want to consider?”

Barbara hadn't said anything about adoption yet, but Harry had the feeling she was just trying not to scare him off. It felt a bit like giving up, agreeing to this, agreeing for someone else to take care of him, when he had a family at home. A family who loved him, and probably missed him. His mum would be so sad if he didn't come back. The thought was still getting him close to tears, even if he could have gotten used to it all week. But maybe, maybe his mum wouldn't want him to be on his own in this strange new time. Maybe she wanted him taken care of.

Barbara was still looking at him with a hopeful look on her face, as if a no would break her heart.

Harry smiled at her, tentatively. He nodded.

☣ ☣ ☣

_Spring 1987. Harry is 12. Louis is 14._

Going to school seemed like such a mundane, trivial thing, after all that Harry had been through.

Everything about it was hard. The fact that it was the 80s, and he had no idea how people had acted in the 80s, so he was constantly afraid of sticking out like a sore thumb. The fact that he was pretty sure his mum and dad were attending this school – the girl who opened the door for him on his first day here, weeks ago, had probably been his mum as a teenager.

And, what should have been the most trivial problem in comparison to all the other time travel related ones, the fact that it was the middle of the school year and Harry was the new kid. A thing that he, growing up in a small village where everyone had known each other since birth, had never been.

“Harold!” he heard a delighted voice shout behind him. He grinned, positively surprised. This was becoming a pattern. The name Harold felt almost natural by now, Barbara used it almost exclusively and Harry hadn't found the right moment to correct her, even though it would now be used on all of his official paperwork. (Including _adoption_ papers. Harry was trying not to think about it too hard.)

Louis, who he spotted emerging from the crowd at that moment, though, Louis had only used it as a cute nickname all those weeks ago. Harry felt strangely comforted by the fact that even though he had most likely forgotten it by now, at least someone here knew his real name.

“What are you doing here?” Louis asked, coming to a halt in front of him. He was grinning, like he was actually happy to see him. Harry couldn't help but smile back. Louis' smile was infectious.

“Oh, I've just… transferred here, you know,” Harry said, trying to be as vague as possible without inviting Louis to ask more questions.

“Cool,” Louis just grinned, though. “Do you want me to show you around a bit later?” He threw a glance at the friend group he just ran away from, who were not-so-subtly eyeing them, probably wondering why Louis was talking to the new kid, who was, in addition to being new, two years too young to be in their class.

Harry appreciated the offer all the more. Even if Louis was just saying it to be nice, he couldn't help the warm feeling that spread through his body as he nodded and accepted.

“Great, see you then!” Louis called, walking backwards to his friend group, only turning around at the last possible second.

Harry smiled.

For the first time in this new life, this new year, Harry felt like he might survive.

☣ ☣ ☣

_November 1988. Harry is 13. Louis is 15._

In the fall of 1988, Harry started having nightmares. It started with an off-handed comment made by Barbara at breakfast.

“I can't believe they still haven't found that poor boy yet,” she sighed, folding the newspaper in two and taking a sip of orange juice. Harry paused, the jam toast halfway to his mouth.

“What boy?” he asked instead of continuing to eat, furrowing his eyebrows. Barbara looked at him a bit weirdly, the way she always did when Harry asked a question that should be obvious but wasn't to him. She always explained without asking further questions though.

“Mike Selley, Brian's boy, the one who went missing two years ago. They don't want to say it, but they don't have any leads on him, I don't think they ever had. The family is devastated, especially Mary, of course, the poor thing. We all assume he's dead by now, but of course the family keeps their hope as long as they don't have confirmation yet.”

Harry gulped. Brian and Mary Selley were his grandparents. He never knew that they had another child besides his mum. Harry had never met an uncle and his mum had never talked about a brother.

“What a horrible thing for them to go through,” Barbara sighed. “I can't imagine how it is to lose a child. Must be the worst pain in the world.” She squeezed Harry's hand at that, giving him a loving smile. Harry tried his best to return it, but he knew it probably looked wobbly. His mum had lost her brother and then, 33 years later, she had to lose her youngest child. Never had he wanted to return to his own time as badly as he wanted to right this second.

That night, in his dreams, he saw his mum screaming for him, but then her familiar 48-year-old face morphed into the one that he saw in the hallways regularly, not Anne Styles, but Selley, young, without laughter lines and wrinkles marking the years on her face yet. In his dreams, she was screaming his name, then her brother's. Stoically, next to her, there was Gemma, so similar to Anne as a young girl, looking indifferent to it all. And finally, the vision morphed into Barbara saying, “Must be the worst pain in the world,” repeating the sentence over and over again, until Harry woke up in a panic, cold sweat running down his back.

It took him a long time to fall back to sleep after that. The same nightmare, in different variations, wouldn't leave him for years to come.

☣ ☣ ☣

_February 1st, 1989. Harry is 14. Louis is 16._

“Why the long face?” Louis said in lieu of a greeting, touching Harry's arm softly instead.

Harry made an attempt to smile at him, but he could tell that it probably looked like more of a grimace.

Louis did that almost every morning, came to Harry's locker when he spotted him, taking the time to talk to him for a few minutes. Still, even after two years of this routine, Harry still wasn't sure why he bothered, expecting Louis to get enough of him and stop showing up. Leave him like everyone else has left him. He shook his head, as if that would get rid of the thought. He knew he wasn't being fair. His family didn't want to leave him. (Except sometimes it felt like they did when a girl with long brown hair and his eyes walked past him in the hallways without giving him a second glance.)

Louis, though. Louis had somehow stuck with him, despite the fact that he was older and had friends way cooler than Harry.

“Curly,” Louis waved his hand in front of his face. “You've spaced out again. Next time you do it, you're going to have to buy me a coffee, I'm serious.” He winked at Harry, probably to let him know he wasn't serious about the coffee, but Harry could still see the worry in his eyes.

He hated that he was constantly making people worry; Barbara, his teachers, Louis. (His mum, Gemma- No. _Stop._)

“No, I'm fine,” Harry mumbled half-heartedly, and followed Louis as he started to walk away from the lockers. It took him until half-way to the science building to realize his next class was on the other side of the school.

After school, there was another part to Harry's routine. Sitting on the still-cold benches as the football team practised, waiting for Louis to finish up and walk home with him.

Harry hadn't joined any extracurriculars when he started school here two years ago (a “magic club” had been too nerdy even for his old class, he doubted suggesting it would go over better in the 80s). Instead, he'd trailed after Louis one day, a bit lost, just because Louis had said, “Football is wicked, man, you should check it out, someday!”

To no one's surprise, not even Louis' probably, Harry had been horrible at football, his hand-eye-coordination made even worse by the growth spurt puberty had gifted him with.

Louis had tried to be nice about it, but Harry had still chosen to stick to the bench after that. He didn't admit it to Louis – or to anyone really – but watching the players was way more fun than to join them anyway.

Today, he wasn't really in the mood to watch, though. The last two years, this day had been fine, really, the newness of not being with his family still too foreign to properly process. His birthday had just been another bad day in a long string of bad days. But now, now that he'd finally realized that he wasn't going to come home, not now, maybe not ever, he almost couldn't stand it.

Getting older was just another reminder of his failure, his failure to get back home. His failure to wake up.

“I'm sorry for being so down all the time,” Harry whispered. He'd given up on the cold benches about halfway through practice and had waited for Louis in the locker room instead. Somehow, waiting in here because he didn't want to walk home alone seemed even more pathetic to him than waiting while watching the practice did.

Louis was already shaking his head before Harry had even finished the sentence. He took both of Harry's hands in his. That, inexplicably, made Harry blush. Something was wrong with his face lately, mostly around Louis.

“I know you don't want to tell me,” Louis said softly. “But Harry. I'm here for you. I know that something must have happened. I don't know what it is. But I'm always going to be your friend, no matter how bad your moods may be sometimes or how hopeless things may seem. I hope you know that.” Harry gulped. Why did Louis have to have such a sure way of always finding the right words?

“I do,” Harry said. He looked down at his hands that Louis still held in a tight grip. He squeezed them back as tightly as he could.

He decided it wouldn't hurt to tell him this one little thing. As vaguely as possible.

“You know how my birthday is on April 19th?” Harry asked. Louis nodded.

“Well, what if I told you that's because Barb- my mum, she adopted me around that time, and that's when Easter Sunday was in 1987. She always told me I was her gift from Jesus.”

“She changed your birthday?” Louis blinked at him, confused. Harry had told him that he was adopted before, but it had been vaguely in passing and he hadn't given Louis a chance to ask about it more. He was afraid that Louis just had to give him one look and he'd spill everything.

“No. She gave me one. Because I told her I didn't have one. But,” Harry whispered. “What if that was a lie? What if I had a birthday in another life but it didn't matter anymore because I'm someone else now?”

Louis looked at him the way that he did sometimes when Harry said something that didn't make any sense, like all he wanted was to understand him. There was nothing Harry was sorrier for than the fact that he couldn't make him.

And then Louis, perfect Louis, who somehow always knew what to say, announced, “Well, then you get two birthday parties. One in April, and one today.”

“Why today?” Harry asked, his eyes wide. He hadn't even mentioned yet that his other birthday was today. There was still a deep fear inside of him that time would unravel around him the second he gave up too much information.

“Well Harold,” Louis winked at him. “Since your mum gave you a birthday, I think I'm allowed to give you one as well. And something tells me that today might be a good pick.”

Harry couldn't help the dopey smile that threatened to take over his whole face at those words. Sometimes he wondered how he ever got lucky enough to find Louis.

☣ ☣ ☣

_Summer 1990. Harry is 15. Louis is 17._

Time travel seemed like a dream sometimes. Something he'd made up for a creative writing homework or something he saw in a movie once.

His mother, his sister, it all seemed like it had happened in another life.

Except then, sometimes, he saw Anne Selley in the hallways, only slightly older than him, bound to graduate soon, everybody's darling, cheer captain and long-time girlfriend of popular jock Desmond Styles.

Harry knew him because he had given him piggy back rides as a kid, read him stories and tucked him into bed. Screamed at his mum late at night, had sat down with him and Gemma for a talk when he was eight, and had barely been around since.

He also knew him because he was on the football team with Louis, was “an alright lad” according to Liam and “a bit of a prick who should have more eyes for his girlfriend” according to Niall.

In some ways, Harry was almost a normal teenager, going to school, worrying over grades, trying to find entertainment in a small town on the weekend, and taking trips to the local record store whenever he or Louis had scraped together enough money to buy an album.

He had also finally made some friends his own age, mostly due to Barbara pushing him to be more social and inviting all of her friends with kids over all the time. He, Niall, and Liam had mostly bonded over being bored teenagers having to endure their parents whims without having phones to distract themselves with yet.

Except, Liam and Niall didn't know what they were missing, they didn't know that Harry was itching to invite them over to play video games or that some of Harry's favourite music wouldn't be made for another twenty years. Niall had heard him humming _Viva La Vida_ by Coldplay one time and Harry had walked around paranoid for the rest of the day, convinced that he had just set something horrible in motion and ruined Chris Martin's entire career.

He also desperately tried to remember if he had ever known Niall and Liam as adults, but, as he had come to realize over the past years, children's memories were funny and selective. Most days he was happy he still remembered his mum's laugh and Gemma's smile.

Louis, though, Louis was maybe the easiest thing in his new life. He, out of everyone here, knew probably the most about how much Harry was struggling, had probably guessed long ago that Harry was hiding something but wasn't ready to tell what it was yet. He had given Louis more of the puzzle pieces than even Barbara, some accidentally, some on purpose. But Louis never pushed, never tried to figure him out beyond what Harry was willing to give.

Harry didn't know how to ever repay Louis for what he had done for him in the past few years, mostly because he could never fully tell him what that was, but he knew he'd spend the rest of his life trying.

☣ ☣ ☣

_October 3rd, 1990. Harry is 15. Louis is 17._

In 1990, Hubble Space Telescope sent its 1st photographs from space, the UN security council authorized military action against Iraq, and East and West Germany officially reunited on October 3rd.

It was also the day Harry spent too long staring at another boys' chest in the locker room and realized, with startling clarity, why _exactly_ he had liked watching Louis' football practices all these years.

He also realized, that the reason why he had never felt a particular desire to kiss any girls wasn't, as he previously thought, because of lingering childhood trauma caused by time travel, but instead probably because he was_ gay_.

His first thought was relief. Finally, an explanation, a thing in his weird, complicated life that made actual sense. Something that didn't have anything to do with magic or science-fiction, something that was just, and had always been, _him_.

Then, he realized, that his first instinct had been to react as if he were figuring this out in 2019, a world where gay marriage had been legal in the UK for almost six years now, a world in which his mum and Gemma probably would have reacted with warmth and indifference to this reveal. He wasn't living in 2019 though.

This was 1990 and last Sunday after church he had heard a friend of Barbara's say that “Aids was a curse sent by God to punish the gays”.

Now, he desperately tried to remember how Barbara had reacted, but the only thing he was certain of, was that she hadn't started an argument. 1990 wasn't the time to start an argument about these things yet, at least not for his catholic adoptive mother, who had lived in a small town her whole life.

The classmate he'd been staring at put on his shirt and Harry was pulled out of his increasingly morbid thoughts, blinking and looking at the ground instead.

All fantasies of kissing boys and holding hands and _having sex_ flew out of his minds immediately. If there was one thing he was sure about, it was that right now, in the early nineties, these thoughts were better kept to himself. How hard could that be?

_Very hard_, he found out in the following weeks. Puberty was a bitch and there was no internet to turn to yet, there were just the girly magazines he sometimes sneaked in with the groceries when Barbara sent him to buy some on his own, and even those were very tame and didn't at all answer his burning questions. He didn't want to know which three perfumes to wear to attract men, he wanted to know how gay men had _sex_. Something a magazine made for girls was decidedly unhelpful for.

He also just desperately wanted to talk to someone about it, but the amount of people who he could even consider was… small. Louis, of course, would usually be his first choice for every personal issue, but this, somehow, was not something he could discuss with him. He didn't want to examine the reason behind that too closely.

He had heard Liam use the word gay as an insult a few too many times lately, so that only left Niall. The idea alone terrified him, but he also knew that he couldn't keep up this cycle of never really saying what he meant. He had too many secrets already, he simply couldn't handle adding another one. Telling Niall was difficult to think about, though, and even harder to actually do. There were no coming out videos he could watch on YouTube beforehand, and he had no idea how to get books on the subject without raising suspicions. Not doing it was not an option at this point anymore, though. Finally sharing his thoughts with someone was all he could think about, now that the idea had creeped into his brain.

So, one day after school, instead of going to football practice, he accompanied Niall to his golf course. Niall had raised his eyebrows at him, probably remembering Harry calling golf “an insult to sports everywhere” only a few weeks ago, but he let him tag along without complaint.

It took him until halfway through the course – which was a while, mostly because Harry sucked at golf and took ages to finish a hole – to bring up the subject at all.

“So…” Harry started, trying to find a way to be as casual about this as possible, only betrayed by his shaking voice. Niall paused in his steps, setting down the golf club, and turned towards Harry, a worried look on his face. So much for being casual.

“It's nothing bad,” Harry reassured quickly, fully aware that it might turn into something bad, depending on Niall's reaction. Niall didn't quite seem to believe him, probably because Harry's voice was still shaking.

“You remember when we looked at that magazine a couple of weeks ago? And you and Liam argued about which model was hotter?”

Niall blinked, confused. “No? Or, well, probably? Was that an important conversation I should have remembered?”

“No, it wasn't,” Harry laughed shakily. “Well, not for you. But for me, it kind of was. Because, you see, I didn't think the models were all that attractive.”

“Well, that's nice, Harry, but you could have literally told us that weeks ago, when we could have maybe _seen_ the poor models in question-”

“No,” Harry interrupted him. “It isn't important which models you argued about. It's the fact that, well, they were _female_ models.”

“Yes?” Niall asked, still uncomprehending. “Why else would we argue about their attractiveness, when- Oh. _Oh._”

He stared at Harry for a few long moments, but at least he hadn't run away screaming yet.

“Harry,” Niall asked then, slowly. “Are you gay?” Harry tried to listen for any particular infliction on the last word, but he couldn't decipher any hint of disgust.

Harry just nodded.

Then, Niall, to his utter astonishment, started _laughing_. “Oh thank fuck, I thought you had cancer for a moment when you started this talk all serious, you fucker.” Then he punched him in the chest and kept on walking.

“Umm,” Harry piped up, hurrying to catch up with Niall. “That's it?”

Niall turned around again. “Oh, you know, I don't give a rat's arse who you fuck, unless this was just an introduction to a love declaration, in which case, I'm sorry to let you down mate, but-”

“No,” Harry immediately yelled. “No, no, no, no.”

“Okay, no need to be so rude about it, let a guy down gently, would you?” Niall fake-gasped and dramatically grabbed his heart.

“Now, go on. It's your turn. I want to finish this course today even if it's gonna take you another five hours. I have a feeling you have, despite my hopes, not suddenly developed an interest in the sport and it's going to take me a while to drag you out here again. So you better make it count!” He took off in a brisk walk, probably to beat the family that had shown up behind them to the next hole.

Harry stayed rooted to his spot for a few moments, still in shock.

Then, relieved laughter bubbled up in him. Maybe there was some goodness to be found in people after all, even in the nineties. He followed Niall.

☣ ☣ ☣

_Spring 1991. Harry is 16. Louis is 18._

Harry was at a house party at some rich kids' house when he first looked at Louis Tomlinson and thought, _Oh, shit_.

There were two reasons for this.

One, the light was shining on Louis in a particular way, his whole face being illuminated while he danced to _Heaven is a Place on Earth_. There was a pool of simmering attraction in Harry's belly, something that had been occurring more and more often lately, and, in itself, was reason enough for worry already. Coming out to Niall had lessened his fear in regards to his sexuality a bit, but the fact that Louis was the reason for his gay thoughts more often than not was, quite frankly, less than ideal.

Louis was his best friend, and most likely straight. His spot on the football team made him more popular with the girls than Harry would like to admit and he was pretty sure that Hannah, a girl from Harry's class who'd fancied Louis for years, was close to getting her wish. So the fact that Harry found himself daydreaming about Louis' eyes quite often lately and also would probably say yes if he asked him to dance right now was… worrying.

The other reason, though, why Harry was suddenly shocked into silence at the sight of Louis, was somehow even more earth-shattering than the realization that his feelings for his best friend might not be strictly platonic anymore.

It was, to be fair, also a thought better kept to himself. Harry had finally realized why Louis looked so familiar.

He was, one day, going to become Darcy's father.

Harry's first thought was denial. He could swear Darcy's last name was something else, although now that he thought about it, maybe it started with a 'T' after all. She was one of Gemma's friends and Harry was friendly with her, but it wasn't like she was his friend. He'd never been to her house, their conversations had never been deeper than small talk.

Desperately, Harry tried to remember her second parent. Now that he was thinking about it, he'd never really seen Darcy's parents around. Louis, or the person Harry suspected to be Louis, had been at a few of his parents' parties, but who was Darcy's mother?

Could her other parent have been another man? Wouldn't Harry remember that detail, if Darcy had been raised by two dads? He gulped. He didn't dare to try and think about it, was afraid to analyse his feelings in too much detail, because if he was honest with himself, he might have to admit that his biggest wish, his _only_ wish, was for _him_ to be that person to Louis.

But that couldn't happen for thousands of reasons, the most important one being that Harry was from the future and hadn't even actually been born yet. It wouldn't be possible to _raise a child _with Louis in this time.

There was still always the small voice in his head, that imagined him going back home someday.

Now, he'd found Louis here. His life was _here_. He had friends and, even though he still struggled to think of Barbara as his real mum, a_ family_. He didn't know how to choose between those two parts of himself, was afraid to make himself try. He was afraid he was going to choose Louis every time.

“Curly, come on, why are you making that face again? Let's dance,” a loud voice yelled beside him. It wasn't the kind of dance invitation Harry thought about in his daydreams, mostly because the song wasn't slow and romantic but some disco hit instead. He let himself be pulled to his feet anyway.

Louis still, after all these years, made it his mission to make Harry smile whenever he felt down.

Harry didn't think he could be blamed for the fluttering in his belly he got at that.

As for the other realization, well. Darcy wasn't born yet. Maybe she wouldn't be born in this alternate reality. Maybe her father was someone completely different. Harry just knew that whatever happened, he probably wouldn't be able to prevent it.

Louis' smile was bright and his eyes were sparkling, even in the dim light. His own heartbreak was another thing Harry probably wouldn't be able to prevent.

For now, he took Louis' hands though, and jumped around with him to a bad remix of _Ice Ice Baby_.

☣ ☣ ☣

_Summer 1991. Harry is 16. Louis is 18._

Visiting Louis at his house after his realization felt weird, but it would have been weirder to just stop. They always spent the summer holidays together, biking around town, going to the local record store, hanging out at the mall-like building in the middle of town that everyone just called a mall because there was only one entrance for three separate stores.

Mostly though, they hung out at Louis' house. It was always filled with life during the summer, and Harry and Louis spent most of their time entertaining Louis' sisters.

Lottie and Fizzy were getting too old to want to hang out with them all day, but Phoebe and Daisy loved having them around to play with. Mostly, Harry suspected, they enjoyed braiding his hair, which he had been letting grow quite long lately.

Louis always opted out in favour of watching them and called them his little princesses when they were done with their make-over. (“You're a pretty princess as well, Harold, don't think you're getting out of this,” he joked. For some reason it made Harry blush every time.)

Hanging out with Louis' sisters had always been something Harry associated with being carefree, with forgetting about his problems when he looked at the innocent joy in their young faces.

Louis' mum, Johanna, was also around most of the time, preferring to take the night shift at the hospital during the summer months so she could spend time with her children during the day. Their dad had not been around much – a feeling Harry knew all too well – so Johanna did her best to take care of them while working a full-time job at the same time. She was one of the warmest people Harry knew, had never even questioned why Louis took a kid so much younger than him under his wings and she treated him almost as one of her own these days.

This summer, the usual warm and home-y feeling he got at the Tomlinson's house felt slightly off, though. The terrifying thing was, there was nothing wrong with any of them, they were okay. It was him that felt wrong, out of order.

Looking at Louis and constantly trying to place his face, trying to figure out where and in what context his younger self had seen him before, had put a damper on things.

They were currently in Louis' room watching Grease on VHS for the maybe 100th time, but all Harry could think about was if Louis had really been at his mum's last birthday party. He never knew how quickly memories you experienced as a young child could fade but it was happening more and more often lately. Most days he was glad if he could still remember what his family had even looked like.

“I know you're in your head again,” Louis murmured softly. Harry resisted the urge to jump at the sound of his voice. Louis was still looking at the screen, but Harry could tell by his furrowed brows that he was worried. He'd looked at him like that a lot the first year they've known each other. Harry hated that he made Louis worry again.

“No, I'm… I'm fine,” he said weakly, but he could tell Louis didn't believe him.

“Come here,” Louis told him and pulled Harry into his side. Normally, it was the number one method to get Harry to relax, but even that wasn't working right now.

The other realization, the crush one, made it hard for him to relax around Louis, constantly overthinking where he should place his arms and if leaning his head on his shoulder was an invasion of Louis' personal space.

Louis didn't seem to share any of these concerns though. He just petted Harry's hair, as he usually did, and radiated calm energy.

With a sigh, Harry settled against him and tried to focus on the movie again. It was going to be a long summer.

When Lottie stuck her head through door an hour later, Harry realized that he'd also not seen her in a while. She was more grown up now with her eleven years, her hair was longer. She looked a lot like her mum, but she also looked somewhat like-

“Dinner is ready,” she said, clearly smirking at the usual sight of them cuddled up together.

“We'll be right down,” Louis reassured her.

When she left, Harry had to resist the urge to stare after her, trying to shake the thought that he'd just seen a mini-version of Darcy.

☣ ☣ ☣

_November 25th, 1991. Harry is 16. Louis is 18._

_Freddie Is Dead _the headline in front of Harry said. He blinked, then read it again. _Aids Kills The King of Rock_ was the one next to it. There was a lump in his throat suddenly, tears gathering behind his eyelids without his permission. He quickly turned around towards the drinks, grabbed a can of coke, and went to pay. The shop owner eyed him with a look of suspicion, probably afraid Harry was going to puke any second now. He couldn't blame him.

As he stumbled out of the shop towards his school, he tried to make sense of the mess of thoughts in his head. He had known, of course, of Freddie Mercury, his dad had loved to listen to old Queen songs. He had also known that Freddie had been long dead, but it had never been a particular source of grief for him. Most of the music his dad had listened to was made by people who were long dead. Gemma had loved to make fun of him for it.

Now, though, that people seemed to be dying of Aids every other day, especially gay men, now it was suddenly something close and personal, something that sent a cold feeling of dread down Harry's spine when he thought about the increasing number of times he had thought about kissing Louis lately.

Louis, who still had no idea about any of this, who should probably be kept far away from Harry, to not get tangled up in a confusing mess of time-travel and hard-to-describe gay feelings that Harry was carrying around like an extra weight on his chest lately.

“What's going on?” Niall asked as soon as Harry walked into the classroom. They always had English together, a fact Harry had never been more thankful for than he was right this second.

“Do you listen to Queen?” Harry asked.

Niall raised his eyebrows. “Of course I listen to Queen, what kind of stupid question is that? Everyone listens to Queen.”

“Freddie Mercury died yesterday. Of Aids.”

“Oh,” Niall said. “Harry, I'm sorry.”

“It's just hard to watch, you know, when you know it doesn't have to be that way, and that he could have, they all could have- You know, lived, and-” he could feel himself getting hysterical, so he stopped in the middle of his sentence, afraid he was going to reveal more than he should if he kept talking.

Niall just hugged him, a bit awkwardly from the side, in the way that only Niall could sometimes. It was hard, not being able to tell him why exactly this was hitting him so hard. He couldn't explain that he had been too young to know anything about all of this when he was in his own time, that he didn't even remember hearing about Aids, whereas now, everyone talked about it all the time.

So there had to be some kind of treatment, someone would find something soon, but it was too late for Freddie, was too late for thousands of-

“Hey,” Niall interrupted his thought spiral. “Wanna come to my house and listen to music after school? We can, you know, put on some Queen. Or not. Listen to something else. Whatever you want, yeah?”

“Thank you, Niall,” Harry whispered. He hugged him back as hard as he could. He just wished he was able to tell Louis about all of this.

☣ ☣ ☣

_May 1992. Harry is 17. Louis is 19._

It was Louis' last official day of school and it felt like Harry's world was ending. He knew he was being dramatic, but Louis had always been his one constant, his one thing to cling to all this time. Going to football practice after school felt like second nature to him by now, something no one questioned anymore. When Louis was gone, that would all stop.

No matter how many times Louis reassured him that nothing would change, that everything could stay exactly as it was, he was only going to take courses in Manchester and stay living at home with his family, Harry still wasn't pacified.

“Have to pass my A-levels first,” he joked every time Harry brought up the subject. Harry only managed a half-hearted smile at that. He knew Louis was smarter than he let people know. He would have no problem finishing his A-levels.

“I, umm, I got something for you,” Harry mumbled to Louis during lunch break. He had dragged Niall and Liam over to sit with Louis and his friends today, because the thought of not even spending a part of Louis' last school day together had been too much for Harry to bear.

Louis immediately looked up at his words, focusing his whole attention on Harry in a way that only he was able to. It really went to Harry's head sometimes, the way he felt when Louis was only focused on him.

“A present?” Louis asked in a similar low tone, probably sensing that Harry was a bit embarrassed. Harry could still hear the excitement bleeding through.

He smiled, softly. “Maybe.”

Louis jumped up. “Hate to cut this short, lads, but Hazza and I have some important business to attend to. Carry on,” he announced with grand arm gestures. Predictably, their friends only shrugged and continued their conversations, while Louis grabbed Harry's hand and pulled him along.

Harry thought they were just going to step outside of the cafeteria, maybe go into the hallway because it was calmer to talk there. But Louis kept on walking, until they were standing on the football pitch, under the bleachers. Harry had to smile at the memories it brought back.

They'd come here whenever their schedules matched up and they both had a free period at the same time, sometimes doing homework, most of the time simply talking or sitting together in comfortable silence. More often than not, Louis had napped.

(Harry had also hidden here alone once, as a kid, he must have been about eight. He'd gotten a bad mark and had been afraid to go home and show it to his mum. In the end, Gemma had found him, dragging him home. The scolding he'd gotten for making her worry he'd disappeared had been worse than anything she would have ever said about his grades. He tried not to think about it too much, that fear his mum had about him disappearing.)

“It's nothing much,” Harry warned Louis, opening his bag and pulling out a small package. “But I wrapped it myself,” he mumbled, blushing. “Even has a little bow on it.”

Louis stared at the package in wonder for a moment, before, very carefully, unwrapping it.

“You can just rip it open, you know,” Harry laughed.

“No, I don't want to,” Louis said decidedly, folding the paper carefully together and slipping it into his back pocket. “You made such an effort, the least I can do is not rip it apart.”

Harry blinked. He never quite knew how to react when Louis said such things.

“_Oh,_” Louis breathed, staring at the small, silver pendant in his hand. “It looks beautiful.”

“That's Saint Christopher. The patron saint of travellers,” Harry mumbled. “I know it sounds like I didn't bother to get you a proper present, but I found this at the lake once. It reminded me of you.”

Louis just kept staring at it, eyes wide.

“I'm sorry,” Harry said quickly. “It was stupid, I don't know what I was thinking, I-”

Louis cut him off by pressing their lips together.

For a moment, Harry tried to process what was happening, but then he stopped thinking and just gave himself over to the feeling. For once, his mind was pleasantly empty, the thought spirals quiet.

It only lasted for a few moments though. For those few moments, it was bliss, pure bliss, better than anything Harry had ever felt or thought he could ever feel. All the clichés he'd ever seen in movies, past or future, seemed to come true at the same time. Fireworks, the world stopping, that spark he was supposed to feel. This kiss was every one of those things, all at once.

Then, it was as if his brain restarted itself.

He pulled away.

For a moment, he watched Louis' eyes blink open, basking in the happy smile he gave him. Then, Louis must have spotted his expression. His smile dropped. “What's wrong?” Louis asked, the soft atmosphere of the kiss broken.

Harry just shook his head. “I'm sorry,” he whispered. “I shouldn't have kissed back. I shouldn't… I should never have done this.”

He took a few steps back. “I'm sorry,” he said again, his voice breaking. He hoped Louis knew how much he meant it. Then he ran.

☣ ☣ ☣

As soon as Harry arrived home, he flung himself face-first into his bedsheets, burying his head in his pillow. He felt like a deflated balloon now that he wasn't at school and in Louis' vicinity anymore, as if all the energy had been sucked out of him.

Barbara was still at work. He wondered what she would say about him skipping class. He wondered what she would say about him skipping class because he'd been kissed by a boy. He shook his head to dispel that thought.

Harry knew he should be happy. Louis kissing him was something out of his wildest fantasies, something he, even just yesterday, would have given quite a lot for. He never even dared to hope that Louis was into boys, let alone into _him_.

Actually kissing him had been like a shock of ice water though. Not that the kiss itself hadn't been perfect. The _problem_ was that it had been perfect. It had been like getting a taste of what life could be like for what felt like the first time.

The kiss had, somehow, inexplicably, made him realize how much he'd been living in denial these past few years. He'd never properly dealt with the fact that he had travelled through time, always tried to not think about it too much. He'd always just been surviving from one day to the next.

Louis, though. Louis had always been the only thing that felt real, the only thing that didn't feel like a faded dream he was going to wake up from any moment. In a swirling storm, Louis had been the calm centre.

And now, there was his chance to be with him. He knew with Louis, it wouldn't just be a fling, a first kiss he could remember as a fond memory one day. If he made the choice to be with Louis, Harry would love him for as long as he let him.

He couldn't make that choice though. Being with Louis would mean letting go of the hope of ever making it back to his own time. As much as he hated it, he wasn't ready for that yet. He just… wasn't.

☣ ☣ ☣

When Barbara got home hours later, Harry was sitting at the kitchen table, staring at a cup of tea that had gone cold in front of him.

“Oh, darling, what's wrong?” she asked immediately. Harry hadn't cried yet, the feeling of overwhelm still too shock-like to actually cry, but his expression must have given him away.

“I thought that I had more time…” he mumbled, probably not making any sense. He didn't worry about making sense with Barbara though. She never judged him for it. “Why does everyone say that… to have time? How can we say that when it's clearly time that has us?”

There it was again, that specific look of confusion and pity on Barbara's face. Harry had grown so used to it, he almost expected it now whenever he opened his mouth.

“Darling,” she said softly, taking his hands in both of hers. “I know you don't like to think about what happened to you, before. But do you maybe want to tell me what happened to you today?”

Harry looked up at her, the face that had been a part of his life as much as Louis, as much as Niall and Liam had been these past few years. He felt guilty about treating her as part of a dreamscape still, after all these years, when she had always been nothing but kind to him. Way kinder than she had to be. He knew she was deeply catholic, and there was a risk in what he was about to do, but somehow, in this moment, he was just too tired to lie to her, too tired to keep it a secret any longer.

“Louis and I kissed today,” he said, finally looking up at her. He didn't want to seem ashamed when he said it. He wasn't.

“Oh,” she said, her mouth dropping open. It was clearly not the direction she'd thought this conversation would go in. She caught herself quickly though. “Oh, darling. Do you love him?”

It was not the question Harry had thought she would ask. He fumbled. “Well, I… It was… and he…”

Barbara still just looked at him, ever so patient. He wasn't sure why he'd ever thought she'd react badly. He should have known it wasn't in her nature. Harry breathed out with a sigh. “Yes,” he said softly. “I love him.” Saying it felt, simultaneously, like the hardest thing he'd ever done, but also as easy as breathing.

“Then why are you so sad, darling?” Barbara asked, squeezing his hands. Tears finally welled up in his eyes. It was almost a relief to feel them, to feel like he could finally let go.

“I can't be with him,” he choked out. “I just can't.”

“Is it because you're both boys?” Barbara asked quietly, her tone serious. “Harry, this isn't what I would have wanted for you, but only because I worry about you. I want you to be happy. I'm afraid the world is going to make it very hard for you. But you have to know that you're-” her voice sounded shaky as well now, “You're my son. And I love you.”

“Love you, too,” Harry whispered. It was hard for him to say it. He'd never been great with expressing emotions ever since he taught himself not to when he was eleven, but it was the truth. “But it isn't because of that. I can't tell you why, but I'm not good for him. I wouldn't make him happy.”

“Darling,” Barbara looked at him, almost a bit angry. “Every boy would be lucky to have you. You've got to know that. I don't know where you got that self-doubt from, but it can't be from me. If anything, you're too good for everyone.”

He chuckled a bit, more to lighten up the situation than because he actually felt like it. Barbara couldn't understand his point, but he was grateful for her words nonetheless. It was more than he'd ever expected to get.

“I just want you to be happy. I trust you to do what will make you the happiest,” she said, and then hugged him. Harry had not been a big hugger ever since he got here, but now he could admit that it was just another way in which he'd been afraid to make himself vulnerable.

“Thank you, mum,” Harry mumbled into the hug. He couldn't see Barbara's face but he was pretty sure she was smiling.

☣ ☣ ☣

_Summer 1992. Harry is 17. Louis is 19._

Louis must have gotten his A-level results by now and the fact that they hadn't talked about it, hadn't waited for the letter and opened them up together, was all Harry could think about when he spotted Louis at Tesco's and immediately hid in the produce aisle.

In fact, they hadn't talked about anything at all lately, because they'd been ignoring each other since that fateful day a few months ago. Harry knew it was his fault, knew that he should be the one to break the silence, apologize to Louis and ask him to be friends again.

But then he would have to explain what went wrong between them, and the thought of lying to Louis and telling him he had no feelings for him almost caused him physical pain.

The thought of telling him the truth was even more laughable.

Harry's plan of hiding until Louis left the shop had probably not been the best idea, mostly because Louis turned the corner in that moment and almost ran into him.

“Oh, sorry,” he mumbled before he looked up and saw Harry. Harry could see the exact moment it registered with him, because his face changed from polite indifference to a hard-to-decipher mix of emotion.

“No, um,” Harry stuttered. “I'm sorry.” _For more than just blocking your way at Tesco's_, he didn't add.

“Yeah, me, um, me too,” Louis replied. Harry almost asked about his A-levels, asked about how his family was doing, asked if Louis had met Darcy's future mother yet- _No._

“I'm just gonna,” Harry said and vaguely gestured to the rest of the shop. Then, he fled. Again.

☣ ☣ ☣

When he got home, he just loaded up the groceries on the kitchen table, getting a kiss in thanks from Barbara, then he grabbed his coat again. There was somewhere he needed to go to think.

The caves looked as they always did whenever he'd come here over the years. No one had used the space next to it to dump their furniture yet, but everything else was always the same. The same eerily quiet, the same looming trees, the same emptiness inside Harry's stomach.

He walked into it, not even trying to find a different path to the tunnel this time. He knew he wouldn't find it, he never had in all the times he'd tried. What he knew was the place where he'd slipped, years ago, and broken his leg, and he knew the place where he'd sat afterwards, crying.

Now, he didn't feel any of that despair that had carried him through so many years, he just felt empty.

Barbara had once told him a story about the paradox of Master Zhuang. It was a story about someone who'd dreamt they were a butterfly, but now that they had woken up, they no longer knew if they were a person who dreamt about being a butterfly, or a butterfly who was dreaming about being a person.

She asked him what he was, a butterfly or a person?

Harry had always replied that maybe he was both. Now he wasn't so sure anymore.

Reality and dream seemed to melt into one sometimes. Some days, he wondered if his life before had been made up. His mum, Gemma, his childhood memories, just a figment of his imagination.

He stared down the long, dark pathway that he knew would just lead into nothingness. The way back was light, a rare amount of sunlight that had broken through the clouds of Holmes' Chapel today, and Harry knew normally he'd spend such a day at the lake with Louis or lazing around on the football pitch. Today he had spent it awkwardly exchanging nonsense with him in a Tesco's.

He turned around, back towards the light. Maybe he wasn't both, butterfly and a person. Maybe he was neither. Maybe he was just destined to be a dream-ghost, stuck between worlds.

☣ ☣ ☣

_Fall 1992. Harry is 17. Louis is 19._

The new school year had started weeks ago, but it felt empty, meaningless without Louis there. They'd never had classes together, but Harry hadn't noticed until now what a constant presence Louis had been despite that. He'd just always been around, making sure that Harry was happy, and Harry just now realized what a privilege it had been to be so cared for by Louis Tomlinson.

“Okay, you need to snap out of it,” Niall stated bluntly during lunch.

“What?” Harry looked up from where he'd been picking at his food, slightly startled out of his thoughts.

“This,” Niall made a few vague hand gestures, “whole thing. At first I just thought it was because you were missing Louis, but I know you can still see him after school if you want to, you did it since I've known you. I know that he's taking a gap year to intern at the nuclear power station, so he's not even off to Manchester yet. So what is it?”

Harry hadn't known Louis was taking a gap year. He ignored the lump in his throat forming at the thought of being left out of such an important decision.

“What if I told you something happened?” Harry asked carefully, pretending to be hyper-focused on his pasta at the same time, so he didn't have to look Niall in the eyes.

“Oh no, what did you do?” Niall asked, immediately suspicious. Harry resisted the urge to get annoyed about that. After all, Niall was right. Harry had been an idiot, and he almost needed Niall to tell him off for it, before the guilt could eat him alive.

Harry threw a look over his shoulder, making sure no one was listening to them. Liam had opted out of lunch to eat in the library while studying for a test – a move that was so typical for him that Harry didn't even begin to question it.

The cafeteria around them was filled with noises of dishes clinking and chatter though, so he felt safe to mumble, “Louis kissed me,” in Niall's direction.

“What?” Niall exclaimed though, making several people turn around. Harry sighed. He should have expected it.

“He kissed me,” he repeated more firmly when everyone had stopped watching them. “Months ago actually, at his last day of school before exams.”

“And you only thought to tell me now?” Niall still looked outraged. “Wait,” he squinted at Harry. “What did you do?”

“Nothing,” Harry immediately started to defend himself until he realized that he wasn't even lying. He practically did nothing, except for running away. That was the problem.

“I may have kissed him back for a tiny second before I realized it was a stupid idea. Then I left. Haven't talked to him since. The end.”

Niall gaped at him. “What do you mean the end?” Now he didn't even sound accusing anymore, just confused. “You just went several months without talking to Louis and you've been keeping it to yourself this whole time?”

“Well,” Harry amended. “I told my mum. I mean, I told Barbara.”

Niall's eyebrows climbed even higher. “You came out to _your mum_? Harry, it's okay if you don't want to share everything in your life immediately but at one point we need to have a talk about you internalizing your emotions and letting them wreck you instead of talking about them.”

He was relieved Niall actually cared enough about him to understand why he hadn't told him sooner. There was nothing but forgiveness in his tone, even when he was teasing Harry. Warmth spread through Harry's stomach at that thought. He didn't know how he was ever supposed to repay Niall for his friendship.

So he just let Niall pull him out of the cafeteria a few minutes later without protest, knowing he deserved the lecture he was going to get.

Somehow, he wasn't dreading it as much as he thought he would though.

“But you're miserable. Louis is miserable. This doesn't make any sense,” Niall concluded after Harry had told him as much of the story as he could. He'd omitted everything time travel related but he'd explained how afraid he was of messing things up, of getting left behind again, of destroying Louis' life. Niall might not exactly get why Harry being with Louis would possibly destroy his life, but he didn't make fun of Harry's feelings, just nodded and rubbed his arm in a comforting gesture from time to time. Harry suspected Niall would have hugged him if he didn't know that Harry wasn't good with casual touch most of the time.

Harry also didn't say, _I'm afraid I'm either preventing Darcy from being born by being with him or he's going to leave me for her mother someday, so it won't work out anyway._ He figured that might be a bit hard to explain without mentioning time travel.

“It's probably internalized homophobia. I got a book from the library about the subject and it sounds exactly like your issues,” Niall said, in that casual way that he sometimes used to drop bombshells on Harry.

“I'm sorry, you got a what?” Harry almost laughed, because the idea seemed so ridiculous to him.

“When you told me you liked boys I got a book from the library to better understand what you're going through,” Niall answered, no trace of humour in his voice. “It was pretty hard to find, I had to wade through almost the entire psychology section.”

Harry had to blink several times to get rid of the tears that started forming in his eyes at that confession.

“You're something else, Niall,” he said after a while, not knowing how to say everything he was feeling without making the situation awkward. Niall grinned at him. He probably got it anyway.

“So, you're afraid you're going to ruin things with Louis because you have a whole bag of issues that I can't even _begin_ to understand, and that's why you won't even try? That's honestly the weakest excuse I've ever heard.”

Harry gasped, slightly offended. “It's not an excuse.”

Niall shrugged. “Sounds like one to me. Stop being afraid of the future, it's the only thing you have control over. Now come on, enough talk about feelings for one day, you're coming to the golf course to make it up to me.”

Harry didn't even protest.

☣ ☣ ☣

That evening, Harry did what he always did when he was feeling particularly sorry for himself. He went to the caves, again because of Louis.

This time, he didn't come to wallow though. He came to say goodbye. He'd always known that it was unhealthy to get hung up on the past so much, to keep hoping for a different future.

He remembered the last time he'd been here, desperate for some sort of sign, some divine intervention that made it clear that he was making the right choice by letting Louis go.

Now he realized that sign wasn't going to come. He had to make his own choices.

Niall was right. He couldn't stop living his life because he was afraid of what might happen. He had to start living as if he didn't know anything about the future. As if he was just a normal boy, trying to do his best.

And if he were a normal boy, he'd choose Louis in a heartbeat. There was no doubt about that.

He watched the entrance of the cave, but didn't go inside this time. He didn't even know if he would climb through the tunnel if he found it right this second.

This would be the last time he'd come here. He needed to move on.

He gazed at the caves one last time, trying to recall every emotion he'd experienced here.

Then he turned around and left, the sun setting around him, enveloping the cave in darkness.

☣ ☣ ☣

This might be the most out of character thing he had ever done, Harry realized when he was standing in front of Louis' door an hour later.

Usually, he let other people come to him, let life happen _to_ him instead of making it happen himself. He never even made much of an effort to be friends with Niall and Liam, and if it wasn't for Niall's persistence, he was sure that friendship wouldn't have lasted as long as it already did.

This was Louis though. He'd never forgive himself if he let him go without even trying.

He rang the doorbell, then stared down at the flowers in his hands again, half-hidden in his jacket. He hoped Barbara wouldn't be mad he'd gotten them from the garden without permission.

“Harry,” Jay said, surprise clear in her voice when she spotted him. “I haven't seen you around in ages! Louis will be so happy to see you!”

Harry wasn't so sure about that, but came in nonetheless.

“He's just in his room, you remember where it is, right?” she winked at him, clearly oblivious to the fact that he and Louis had been fighting and that Louis might not be as happy to see him as she was.

Harry hesitated for just a moment, then he slowly made his way upstairs.

There was loud music coming from Louis' room, but Louis still yelled, “Yeah,” when Harry knocked.

He opened the door carefully. “Hi,” he choked out, unsure if he should close the door behind him again or if that would be even weirder than just showing up at Louis' house, in his room, unannounced.

“Hi,” Louis answered, looking a bit shell-shocked. Then he suddenly jumped up. For a split-second Harry thought he'd either kiss him again or punch him in the face, but he did neither, just walked towards his record player to turn it off.

He slowly turned around to face Harry afterwards.

Harry was almost glad that they were both standing now, it spared him the awkwardness of having to sit down next to Louis _on_ _his bed_, a position he'd been in a hundred times before but wasn't sure he could handle at the moment.

“Okay, you were the one who showed up in my room, you should probably say something,” Louis started after the silence had gone on for a few seconds too many, adding a chuckle at the end that sounded a bit too forced.

“Yeah,” Harry took a deep breath. The only thing he'd realized at the caves was that he wanted to be with Louis. He had no idea how to make it happen.

“First of all, I'm sorry,” Harry said, trying to make his voice sound more confident instead of his usual quiet mumbling. “Kissing you back and then running away was a dick move and I don't want you to think it was your fault, because it wasn't, I promise.”

Louis looked at him with wide eyes. Harry stared back. “I didn't think this would be the surprising part,” he laughed nervously.

“Are you kidding,” Louis replied, his tone dry. “For _months_, I thought you hated me because I dared to kiss you, _another boy_, thought you might have a laugh with your friends about it or, even worse, _pity__ me_, and you're asking me not to be surprised?”

“I would never do that,” Harry rushed out, panicking. This wasn't going the way he wanted it to go. “Did you think I would do that?”

Louis shrugged, looking a bit helpless. “What else was I supposed to think? I was ready to apologize for ambushing you and everything, but you seemed to be avoiding me.” _You avoided me too_, Harry wanted to add, but then he realized that this conversation was going completely off track now.

“I _like_ you,” he blurted out, then widened his eyes. A slightly too dramatic change of topic, maybe.

“Like, as in-” Louis started carefully.

“Like as in, I want to kiss you all the time, and would you, maybe, go on a date with me sometime?” Harry asked, chewing on his bottom lip. He should have definitely come here with a better plan than _I have decided to be with you now, please have me_. He hadn't thought much about the how, _except_-

“Oh no, the flowers,” Harry exclaimed, looking around in a panic. He had just carelessly left them with his coat in the hallway. They were probably crumbled by now. Louis still hadn't said anything, probably a bit too confused by the rambling mess that had come out of Harry's mouth in the past few minutes.

Harry tried to take a deep breath. “I swear I got flowers, and I wanted to ask you this under much better circumstances, and I just realized that I completely forgot to properly apologize, and-” His breathing got quicker.

“Hey, it's alright, don't worry.” Now Louis was moving towards him, probably his protective instincts coming out. He'd always been like that when Harry wasn't feeling good. “Why don't we sit down, huh?”

He didn't wait for Harry to answer, just pulled him over to the bed and firmly made him sit down. He was probably afraid Harry was going to faint right then and there.

“I want to answer your question,” Louis said softly, “But I want to make sure it's really what you want. Why did you run away when we kissed? What happened these last few months? Why didn't you talk to me?”

“I'm sorry-” Harry started again, but Louis interrupted him. “I've already forgiven you. I just want to understand.”

He looked so sincerely worried, that for a moment, Harry wanted to spill everything, every single one of his issues, no matter the consequences that honesty might have.

As usual, he couldn't get out the words though, a mixture of fear and a mental block stopping him, so he settled on a half-truth. “I was afraid of the future. I'm always afraid of the future. I don't want to lose you.”

“I've nearly lost you there for a few months,” Louis said, his tone serious. “I can't do that again. You have to talk to me from now on.”

Harry nodded. He knew that he would always _try_, at least. “Does that mean…“ he trailed off, leaning his head to the side and coyly looking up at Louis. The girl's magazine he sometimes sneaked in said it made you look sexy.

Louis laughed. “Yes, curly, I'll go on a date with you. What are you even doing with your head-”

Harry kissed him before he could finish the sentence.

_This_, he decided. This was what happiness tasted like.

☣ ☣ ☣

_February 1st, 1993. Harry is 18. Louis is 20._

After they had finally gotten together, Harry had honestly believed he was over all of the weird hang-ups he'd had about their relationship and could now fully live in problem-free bliss for the rest of his life. Or, at least he didn't think that his childhood trauma and time-travel related issues were going to be a problem when he wanted to have sex for the first time.

Especially because having sex with Louis was something he'd been looking forward to for over a year now, long before they'd even gotten together.

Louis though, Louis seemed determined to “take it slow”, way more concerned about Harry's virtue than Harry had ever been himself.

There was also the problem of finding the right time and place. They still hadn't told anyone except for Niall about their relationship, although Harry and Louis were both out to their mums (the pang of guilt that Harry felt every time he thought of Barbara as his mum still hadn't subsided). But they knew admitting they were a couple would come with a whole new set of restrictions they weren't actually ready for.

Barbara at least had probably guessed by now, given that she knew about the kiss and could most likely connect the dots when Harry and Louis finally started hanging out again after those long, dreary months without talking. Harry was sure Barbara had felt the shift in his mood.

Still, Harry's house was the best option for spending alone time together, given that they only had to find a time when Barbara was working a night shift, instead of getting a whole bunch of children out of the house as well.

“So,” Harry started slowly one afternoon. It was sunny outside and they were hanging out by the bleachers. Louis had originally just wanted to pick him up from school, but they'd ended up at the football pitch again. It was a bit cold here in January, but they both didn't want to miss this small nostalgic indulgence. Harry tried to keep his breathing even, thinking of a way to start this conversation without being awkward.

“Do you want to come over tomorrow evening?” he asked then, as casually as possible.

Louis widened his eyes. “Of course I will! It's your birthday, darling!”

Harry smiled at him. He loved that Louis still insisted on celebrating his second (his _real_) birthday, the one he had given him all those years ago. The date didn't hold any particular importance for Barbara, so she was going to be working.

“We could… you know, I'm gonna have the house to myself…“ Harry could feel himself blushing. He wondered if Louis would ever not make him feel like a flustered pre-teen girl.

Louis' smile went from a grin to something softer, more careful. It was his Harry-smile. “Only if you're sure.”

“Louis, if you ask me that one more time, you are never going to get laid ever,” Harry said, trying for a dry tone, but he could hear the humour bleeding through. Louis always made him feel this way, giddy and excited. He hoped that was also something that wouldn't fade.

Louis just grinned. “Naah, I think you want me too badly for that, darling,” he grinned.

Harry huffed but he couldn't even deny it.

“Just be at my house at six tomorrow. And let's go somewhere else please, before I get frozen to this bench.”

Louis just smiled fondly at him and took his hands. “As you wish, baby.”

Harry blushed again at the pet name. _Damn it_.

☣ ☣ ☣

Harry had already changed the sheets and cleaned his room meticulously before Louis had even come over, so the fact that Louis had immediately banned him from his room and had now been making him wait in the living room for ten minutes already was making him kind of nervous.

“Okay, you can come in,” Louis finally announced after another five minutes had passed. He even put his hands over Harry's eyes until they reached his room, softly laughing at Harry stumbling his way forward the whole time.

When they finally reached his room though, all the nervousness left Harry in an instant. Louis had put a few candles up, and he'd brought his record player from home, because Harry had never owned one. The Smiths were playing softly in the background.

“Happy birthday, darling,” Louis whispered. Harry could only stare.

“Lou,” he choked out, before he decided that talking was too much for him right now, turning around to kiss his boyfriend instead. Louis immediately pulled them closer together until it felt like every single part of their bodies were touching.

They stumbled more than they walked over to the bed, their touches that had grown more confident over the past weeks suddenly a bit shaky again.

“Shh, calm down, baby, we have all night,” Louis murmured into the kiss, but Harry was sensing that he was also a bit nervous himself.

Harry pulled away from the kiss for a moment, a thought popping into his head, something that maybe should have occurred to him a bit sooner. “Have you ever, you know… with a guy?”

Now it was Louis' turn to blush. “Well, yeah, just… a bit of fooling around. Some guy at a party that my friends and I went to after we saw a football game in Manchester once. One time with that guy from Crewe that was helping out Coach Grimshaw for half a year. A bit with girls, you remember Hannah, right? Nothing more, nothing… you know, proper.”

Harry felt jealousy hot in his veins, although he knew that it was unfair. Louis had behaved perfectly normal. Just because_ he_ was repressed and hadn't even kissed anybody until Louis had literally taken that into his own hands a few months ago, didn't mean everybody else couldn't have fun.

“Oh,” he just said, not knowing what an appropriate reaction was here. “That's cool.”

He cringed at himself, feeling the good mood of the evening almost slip out of his grasp.

Louis just smiled softly at him, as if reading his thoughts. “There are a lot of firsts we can still have together, though. I promise I'm just as out of my depth as you are. Maybe we should both just… Try and let go for a bit.”

Letting go sounded perfect, even though it was something Harry had absolutely no experience in. He felt like he was always on edge, ready to cower somewhere and let the storm pass at a moment's notice.

Louis, though- Louis was pulling out every trick in the book.

He was approaching Harry like an easily startled animal, not starting immediately with a kiss this time but just looking at him, running his hands over his body, massaging his shoulders.

“Relax,” he whispered into Harry's ear, who was now spread out on the sheets below Louis, still fully clothed. Louis seemed to sense that losing his clothes would also mean losing another level of protection for Harry, so he was just slowly opening buttons on both of their shirts, distracting Harry with a long, unhurried kiss the whole time. Harry couldn't deny that it was working, losing himself while kissing Louis had never really been a problem for him.

Then Louis moved on from kissing Harry's mouth to trying to kiss every inch of his body, slowly taking both of their clothes off in the process, pressing kisses to newly exposed skin.

Harry didn't know his chest was that sensitive, the inside of his thighs, that spot on his neck. So Harry slowly got brave enough to reciprocate, running his hands over every part of Louis' skin that he could reach, trying to learn every bit of his body in return.

It wasn't hurried at all, it was soft and slow, but their touches were slowly getting surer, every reaction from the other making them more brave.

Finally, Louis asked, “Can I?” before he touched Harry's cock, and Harry could only nod and try to push into the touch, the only thought in his head, _more, please, I want everything with you_.

Louis' slow touches were still unhurried, a constant rhythm, but growing surer, more intense. At one point Louis had grabbed the lube that Harry had placed right on the bedside table when he'd been cleaning this afternoon, a move that seemed embarrassing then but was coming in handy now.

Louis was holding both of them at the same time now, so Harry just reached out to him, a whispered, “_Please_,” and touched Louis' cock for the first time. He was sure he wasn't as skillful as Louis was but Louis was moaning now, his own hand on Harry's cock stilling for a few seconds before he caught himself again, so Harry figured he must be doing _something_ right.

He had never felt something as intense, masturbating had always been nice, but this, the feeling of Louis all around him, touching him, feeling his skin- He didn't know if he'd ever get over the intensity of this feeling.

“Harry,” Louis said softly, and somehow that was what did Harry in, making him come all over the sheets, shaking and crying out Louis' name.

He didn't know if Louis actually remembered his name, and maybe he didn't, maybe it was just another nickname, but nothing had ever felt more real than this moment.

Louis took a few moments more, but after Harry had basically become useless, he'd grinded against him a few times and then came as well.

“Louis, Louis, Louis,” Harry kept repeating almost nonsensically, as if he could convey his gratitude for Louis calling him Harry instead of Harold that way.

“I love you,” Louis whispered to him a few minutes later, after they'd cleaned up and were on the brisk of sleep. Harry almost flinched for a moment. _How can you love me when you don't even really know me?_ he wanted to ask.

“I love you, too,” he murmured back instead. That, at least, was the most honest thing he could have said. Everything else he could worry about later.

☣ ☣ ☣

_Spring 1994. Harry is 19. Louis is 21._

They were going to graduate soon and Harry knew he was going to have to talk to Liam sooner rather than later. Hiding liking boys had been fine as long as he was single and simply staring too long at football practice sometimes, but now he was hiding a whole relationship, something that he considered one of the most important parts of his life at the moment.

It wasn't made easier by the fact that Liam loved to talk about his girlfriend, Sophia, and used every opportunity to bring her up. Harry had found himself wanting to throw in a, _Yeah Louis does that as well_, so many times that he was honestly surprised he hadn't developed an ulcer from holding in so much yet. Sometimes he wished he'd fallen into a queer friendship group as easy as Louis had at Manchester university, where he'd started a business major in the fall.

Harry knew he chose business because he planned to work at the power station when he was done with his degree, and he wished he had a better argument to stop him other than, _The power station is dangerous, I know it, weird things are happening there._

In weak moments, Harry had to admit it wasn't only that worry. He was also always a tiny bit jealous – of Louis having it all figured out, knowing exactly what job he wanted and how to achieve that, of Louis starting to be settled in his life and his identity while Harry felt like he was still struggling through every little adversity, maybe also a little bit jealous of Zayn, Louis' cool new queer friend from uni who was _experienced _and_ cool_-

Right now, Harry didn't want to think about Zayn _or_ Liam though.

Louis had no classes today, so he'd surprised Harry at school again, something that had become a bit of a habit over the past year. It had been Harry's idea to sneak into the locker room, and it had been a mutual decision to find Louis' old locker and indulge in nostalgia for a bit. Currently, that involved the locker handle digging into Harry's back and them desperately trying to find some friction against each other without losing their balance.

Louis had his lips attached to the sensitive spot on Harry's neck, holding one of his legs up with his hands. The angle was _perfect_ and Harry couldn't help but let out a loud moan at the feeling of Louis' body against his, trying to muffle it in vain with the hand that wasn't gripping Louis' hair.

Sometimes Harry still marvelled at the way their bodies fit together. Their sex life had only gotten better over the past year, their comfort with each other growing with each day. Harry felt like Louis was slowly peeling away all of his walls. By now there were probably only one or two left. One of them had _time travel_ written on it in big chunky letters.

Louis had also coaxed him to be more adventurous, more open to new experiences. Hence the grinding in the locker room, something that Harry found incredibly hot, but would have been way too embarrassed to admit even a few months ago.

He kept losing himself in the pleasure of it, losing his focus on his surroundings, only filling his mind with Louis, tasting, smelling, hearing and seeing nothing but him. Louis changed the angle once more and suddenly the friction was _just right_, just a bit more and-

“_Oh_,” a voice suddenly sounded behind them. Harry wished he'd been quick enough to immediately let go of Louis but he just froze, the waves of pleasure that had almost reached their high collapsing in on themselves in a sudden crash.

“Fuck,” Louis cursed in front of him. He'd been quicker to react than Harry, already placing himself in front of him in a protective pose, although neither of them had even taken any clothes off.

Liam was standing in front of them, his mouth hanging open.

“Hey come on, what's taking so long, I thought you only wanted to- Oh.” Niall stumbled in behind Liam. Harry could see his gaze flicking between the three of them, connecting the dots quickly.

Then he laughed, a bit forced. “Oh, what an awkward situation that we can all laugh about later. Right, boys?” he said forcefully, looking mostly at Liam.

Liam seemed to have taken in the scene for what it was by now. He widened his eyes, quickly shook his head as if to get rid of what he'd just seen, then, without another word, turned around on his heel and left.

“Liam!” Harry tried to stumble after him, but Louis stopped him.

“Let him cool down for a bit, baby,” he whispered softly. Harry saw Louis shooting Niall a look, making a small gesture with his head. Niall gave a tiny nod back.

“Don't worry, Haz,” Niall said, his tone forcibly cheerful, only betrayed by his grim expression. “I'm going to talk some sense into him. It's going to be alright.” Then he turned around and left the locker room as well.

Harry could only bury his head in Louis' chest. Now that the adrenaline was slowly leaving his system, there was only sadness left.

☣ ☣ ☣

“Hey,” Liam said, sitting next to him at lunch a few days later. Niall had to work on a project, so Harry had been sitting alone until now, being painfully reminded that, even though he kept visiting, Louis wasn't actually going to this school anymore. Sometimes he missed him like a limb.

“I wanted to apologize,” Liam started carefully. Harry had to stop his mouth from falling open.

“Niall talked to me and… explained some things. I may not agree with your… choices,” Liam paused, and Harry had to stop himself from cringing at that particular word choice, “But you're my friend. I want to continue to be your friend.” Liam looked so earnest that Harry couldn't help but nod.

“I forgive you. But you have to stop saying shit like that if we want to make this work.”

Liam nodded, eyes wide.

Harry, because he couldn't stay mad at Liam for long when he looked like a kicked puppy, even though he _had_ been in the wrong, pulled him into a hug.

It took him a while, but eventually Liam relaxed into it. Harry hoped being friends with him and Louis would eventually have the same effect on his attitude towards gay people.

☣ ☣ ☣

_1998\. Harry is 23. Louis is 25._

“Will you marry me?”

Of all the ways Harry had ever imagined himself reacting to that question, especially if it was asked by Louis, cold fear gripping his heart hadn't been one of them.

He thought he was over this. He thought the moment he and Louis had gotten together all those years ago would have marked the end of all of his issues, the end of self-doubt and confusion between dream and reality. He thought that choosing Louis would mean choosing to be normal. A person instead of a butterfly.

He should have realized that it wasn't that easy.

“You don't look like you're going to say yes,” Louis said softly. His smile had slipped from his face, but he didn't look angry. Just a bit sad. “Is it because it wouldn't actually be a _legal_ marriage yet? Because that wouldn't matter to me.”

“No, that's not it, I promise,” Harry got out. He could honestly say that that was something he hadn't even considered.

“No, it's... Louis, I,” Harry stuttered. Louis had always just accepted him being a bit weird about these things, never questioning him, never pushing. Harry wondered if this time _he_ had pushed _Louis_ too far, though.

“I need some time,” Harry whispered, and Louis nodded. Harry wished he was that normal person he wanted to be so badly, if not for himself then for Louis' sake. Louis deserved to be with someone that treated him like he was the most precious thing in the world, not with someone who had to make sure he himself wasn't falling apart before he could make sure Louis wasn't.

“I love you,” Harry said almost desperately.

Louis nodded again.

Harry could tell they were both wishing it was enough right now.

☣ ☣ ☣

Taking time to answer your boyfriend’s proposal must have been the most awkward thing Harry had ever done, mostly because living together didn't make it easy to avoid each other.

They had moved in together almost immediately after Harry had graduated and started at Manchester university as well. Somehow, moving in together hadn't been as scary as this.

Harry wasn't even sure if avoiding Louis was what he wanted. Couldn't he figure this out with Louis by his side, holding his hand the whole way through?

It took two days until Louis sat them both down and explained to Harry that he would be staying with his family for a few days.

“But why?” Harry almost whined. He knew he was being unreasonable, that he was the one who had gotten them into this mess in the first place, but it still felt, strangely, like Louis was abandoning him.

“You were right, love. You need some time. And I need to give it to you.”

Louis kissed him on the cheek, gently, careful, like he always was with Harry. Sometimes Harry wished he wasn't a person that people were constantly afraid might break at any second.

Then he was gone.

☣ ☣ ☣

Harry had never thought of their flat as particularly big before, but now that Louis wasn't in it, it felt too spacious and empty.

He tried to distract himself by working, throwing every ounce of energy he had into his current photography project. Starting a career in that particular field had caused a few raised eyebrows when he first decided on art as his major a few years ago, something that in no way enabled him to work at the nuclear power station one day. It was the only company guaranteeing a stable job in this small town, said almost everyone. It was a danger hazard waiting to explode, Harry thought, privately.

Also, as he discovered during his uni days, he _loved_ photography, was always hunting after the latest camera models, itching for the days with newer technology.

Usually, his signature were bright colours, beautiful scenery, or capturing happiness in one way or another.

On the third day without Louis he found himself taking pictures of empty spaces though, grey skies. They were easier to find in Holmes Chapel anyway, the clouds usually only parting during the height of summer.

After the fifth picture he took of their empty bedroom, the bed only slept in on one side, he concluded that this wasn't a good way of dealing with this. He resisted the urge to go to the caves again. When he was a teenager, it had been a way to dream about going back to his own time, to (actually) see his family again. Now, he didn't want to go back though. That was one thing he knew for sure. That future was lost to him, maybe it had never been within his grasp to begin with.

So why was it so hard to say yes to Louis? What was he scared of?

He had the sudden urge to talk to Gemma. His too-wise-for-her-age sixteen-year-old sister who always protected him, always knew what to say. Harry was hit by a sudden wave of grief, dulled now over the years of living with the pain, but still an ache that was as familiar as breathing.

Gemma wasn't available, but there was one member of his family that actually was. He didn't know if talking to her would do him any good, but he knew he had to try at some point. It might as well be now.

☣ ☣ ☣

“Oh, hi! Harold, right? You're Louis' boyfriend.” Anne, not Selley anymore, but Styles, was standing in front of him, looking more like his mum than she ever had during the years they went to the same school, when Harry used to see her in the hallways.

“Des is out right now, but I could take a message?” she offered, in that soft tone she had that immediately made him feel at home.

“No, I, um, I wanted to talk to you, if that's alright?” Harry asked, aware that this whole thing was a bit weird.

“Oh, of course,” Anne agreed though, letting him in immediately. “Do you want a cup of tea, love?” And that was the reason why he had come after all, even though he knew they were acquaintances at best. He knew his mum was the warmest, kindest person on the planet. She would never turn away someone who'd come to ask for her help.

“Oh, um, yes, that would be lovely,” Harry agreed, looking around the house with wide eyes. He'd heard through local gossip that Anne's parents had located to a smaller flat just outside of town, and now Anne was living in their old family home, with her new husband. Everyone expected them to have kids soon. In fact, Barbara had told him just weeks ago, “That big house and all those empty rooms, you can't tell me they need three different spare rooms.” Harry had just nodded along, trying not to miss his childhood bedroom too badly.

“Here you go, love. I always drink mine with milk, no sugar, but I can get you some sugar if you want to?” Anne asked, motioning for him to take a seat at the dining table.

“No thank you,” Harry declined, already feeling choked up. “That's how I drink it as well.”

“So, what can I do for you?” Anne inquired.

Harry gulped. “Well, this is going to sound weird, but-” _Good start_, he congratulated himself. Every reason he could possibly invent for asking her advice about a marriage proposal was inevitably going to sound weird.

“Well, you see, I'm working on a photography project at the moment, and I'm doing interviews with various people. Louis suggested you or Des would maybe agree to help and answer a few questions for me,” he quickly rushed out, trying not to seem as if he was making this up as he went along.

“Oh, gladly. You see, don't tell that to my pupils, but as a teacher the summer holidays can sometimes drag on a bit when your husband's working all day,” she laughed. Harry tried to blink away memories of past summer holidays, the way Anne had always tried to make every day special for him and Gemma so they wouldn't get bored, even though there were times when they didn't have a lot of money after their dad left them. Summer was a time he associated with a feeling of pure happiness, a feeling he's only been able to recreate with Louis.

Harry pulled out a notebook from his bag, secretly glad he brought it so he could at least pretend he was conducting a serious interview.

Only when it was in front of him, the pages completely blank, he realized he had no idea what to ask Anne. He had no idea what he even hoped to achieve with this visit.

“It's about important memories,” Harry blurted out. “What are some moments you associate with happiness?”

“Mmh,” Anne didn't sound put off by the question and she took a while to think about it.

“My graduation from uni was a big moment for sure. Teaching my first class. And,” she laughed. “Getting married of course.”

Harry tried to swallow past the lump in his throat. “What about the moment you got proposed to? That as well?”

“Oh, yeah, for sure. But only afterwards,” Anne laughed.

“Why?” Now Harry was leaning forward to catch everything she said. He'd never heard the story of his parents' engagement before.

“Well, he asked me in the middle of a fight. I was angry because of some small, petty thing, I can't even remember. He just screamed, _Well I guess I'll return the ring then_, and that was that. It was awkward for a bit, before I asked him to propose for real and he did.” She smiled fondly at the memory.

Harry personally thought the whole proposal sounded exactly like something his dad would pull, but he didn't comment on it. Instead he just asked, “Did you immediately know you were going to say yes? Even though you were in the middle of a fight?”

“Oh, yes,” Anne grinned. “He knew how to calm me down, you know? If I was anyone else, proposing in that moment would have been the worst idea possible, but he was sure I was going to say yes. And he was right. I guess I like that he knows me completely. Every part of me.”

Harry tried to keep his face neutral, but he could feel his bottom lip quivering. _Not now, not now._

“And,” he tried carefully. “Do you feel like you know him completely as well?”

Anne just nodded. “Of course. Or I wouldn't have married him, would I?”

☣ ☣ ☣

Harry didn't go to sleep for a long time that evening.

For one, he kept thinking about his mum, newly married, full of hopes and dreams, telling him that she knew her husband completely, every part of him. He knew for a fact that that wasn't true. He didn't know when it started, but at some point after having kids, Des had started lying and cheating on his mum. He was pretty sure that if someone asked in Anne in 2019 whether she'd ever completely known her ex-husband, her answer would be no.

So Harry was already in a different position. He wasn't under any illusions. He knew that Louis didn't know him completely, he knew that there was a big part of himself that he was withholding, and probably always would be.

Even if he thought having a “I travelled through time“-conversation would go over well, there was still that lingering fear about what effects it could have, if he'd change his own future. If he told Louis about Darcy, would he stop her from being born?

But would leaving Louis be better? Fairer? Would breaking both of their hearts be worth it if it meant not living a lie?

This was a decision he thought he had already made six years ago. It seemed to come back to haunt him.

He kept tossing and turning for a while, trying to find a comfortable position that would shut up his thoughts and let him go to sleep. After all, all of his thoughts had led to the same conclusion: He knew that Louis was going to come back tomorrow and he had to give him an answer by then.

☣ ☣ ☣

“Hi, love,” Louis greeted him in the morning, kissing him softly in greeting. Harry wanted to melt into it, almost in awe that he was still worthy to be kissed that gently, even after he had disappointed Louis again. Sometimes he wondered if he was even a good boyfriend. If he had any positive qualities that weighed out the rest.

After that first hurdle of awkwardness was out of the way, Louis took his time to unpack, as if to show Harry that he didn't intend to leave again, that this was still their home.

“Let's sit, shall we?” he finally asked, both of them awkwardly sitting down on the sofa. Usually, they were cuddled up together on here, never not touching each other. For this conversation, it felt wrong though.

“So I've been thinking,” Harry started, internally cringing at how cliché he sounded right now. “And there is nothing I want more than to marry you. Nothing in the world.”

“But?” Louis asked softly.

“But… You know that I have some… issues. And I'm afraid these issues are never going to go away and if you marry me you're going to have to deal with them for the rest of your life.” Harry took a deep breath. This one was the most difficult one to say, “Also, this is only my fault and I don't blame you for any of this but you don't fully know me. There are… things that happened during my childhood that I can't tell you and I don't know if I'll ever be ready or _able _to tell you, so I don't want you to keep waiting for that moment because it may never come.”

He expected a few reactions to this, but he didn't expect Louis to smile at him. (_Harry-smile_, he thought. There it was again.)

“I disagree,” Louis said simply. He grabbed Harry's hand, and Harry held onto it like a lifeline.

“I may not ever fully know or understand every single thing you've been through but it doesn't change anything for me. I know you. I know _you_. I know who you are as a person, I know your character. You,” Louis started to sound choked up and Harry wished he hadn't made him cry, hadn't ever caused Louis any pain at all, “You like your eggs scrambled in the morning. You say you prefer to drink smoothies and all of that healthy stuff but I know you love it when I do a full English for us once in a while. You take your tea with way too much milk because you always sneak more in while you drink it. You hog the blanket in the middle of the night. You're so passionate about your job, about every single one of your art projects. You've never quite lost that obsession for anything magical that you had when you were young. You love music, old stuff, but you're also excited whenever anything new by unknown pop artists comes out, buy all of their first singles-”

Harry almost choked out a laugh at that, remembering Louis looking at him weirdly when he purchased _…Baby One More Time_ a few weeks ago immediately after it was released.

“I know you didn't always have it easy. You've been adopted late, and your relationship with your adopted mum is… difficult for you sometimes. You struggled a while to come to terms with your sexuality,” Louis let out a small chuckle at that. Harry could hear the silent _who hasn't though_ in that and he gave him a small smile.

“And most importantly,” Louis continued. “You are always warm and loving. You've always treated me as if I hung the moon, but Harry, you are the one who deserves to be treated like that. You don't even _notice_ how important you are. How important you are to me.”

Harry could feel himself getting teary again, something Louis seemed to bring out in him whenever he got particularly sappy.

“Believe me, I know you. Not in the most literal sense maybe, but in all the ways that count. So I'm asking you again,” he didn't kneel down or pull out the ring again this time, but his grip on Harry's hands tightened a bit.

“My love, will you marry me?” He'd called him _Harold James Smith _last time, Harry's official full name, but he didn't now. Harry was inexplicably glad for it.

“Yes,” he choked out. There was no other answer, he realized now. He never could have walked away from this, there was never even a chance of that.

Sometimes, Harry thought, when faced with a cliff, you simply had to jump.

☣ ☣ ☣

_December 4th, 2003. Harry is 28. Louis is 30._

“Oh, congratulations, I'm so happy for you! Yes, we'll definitely make time! Yes, of course! Harold wishes you all the best as well!” That sentence made Harry look up. _Who?_ he mouthed, but Louis just smiled at him and held up a finger.

“Again, I wish you all the best! Give my love to Anne!” Louis ended the phone call and turned around to smile at him. Harry hoped his husband wouldn't notice how pale he'd gone at hearing the word _Anne_. Quickly, he tried to remember what date it was. The beginning of December. 2003. Which meant-

“That was Des, my old buddy from the footie team, you remember him, right? He and his wife just had their first child and invited us to the christening. It's on Tuesday, you're free that afternoon, aren't you?”

Harry nodded faintly. “What's her name?” he asked, trying to make it sound casual.

“Huh?” Louis looked at him, a bit confused. “Did I say that it was a girl already? They've named her Gemma.”

“Oh, that's a nice name,” Harry forced out. Sometimes he felt like he was okay for months, stable, happy. Like nothing bad could touch him. Then, something like this happened that completely threw him off course. He wondered if he'd ever be completely okay or if that was some kind of pipe dream he still held onto.

He knew he was going to have to make up some kind of excuse. There was no way he could go to that christening.

☣ ☣ ☣

Louis had been in a weird mood ever since Harry begged out of Gemma's christening because he wasn't feeling well and with comments such as, “You don't really need me there anyway, do you?”

Harry couldn't exactly blame him though, because he had been in a weird mood himself. Usually, he loved his job more than anything else, getting to photograph weddings and newborns were some of the highlights of his days.

Now, he realized that he knew which happy newly-wed couple would divorce in a few years, he sometimes knew which family would lose their house that he was photographing them in, and he knew that Matt, the newborn he'd taken some artsy shots of in his family garden a few days ago, would grow up to be an utter prick. Harry wondered if Gemma had ever noticed that Matt liked her, or if he was still hopelessly pining. He kind of hoped Gemma had found someone better instead. _Will_ find someone better. In the future.

Right now she was just a newborn baby, a baby he had refused to go and see and now his husband was mad at him.

When he'd made the choice to accept this life as his own, as his real life, all those years ago, he hadn't really considered that time would go on, would run through his fingers, and sooner or later he would live in the reality he'd left behind all those years ago again.

Just not in the way he had always wanted to.

☣ ☣ ☣

“Okay, just say it. Whatever fight you've been wanting to have with me for the past few days. Let's have it. I can't take this awkward silence anymore.” Harry looked at Louis expectantly, pointedly sitting down at the kitchen table, waiting for him to do the same. They should probably stop having so many of their serious talks at this table, it was beginning to induce a bad mood in Harry whenever he looked at it.

“It's nothing-” Louis tried to start, but one look at Harry shut him up.

“Okay, you're right,” he sighed, sitting down. “We should talk.”

Over the years, Harry had actively trained himself out of always expecting the worst whenever Louis said those words – mostly because sometimes the reason was entirely harmless – but he couldn't help the fact that a small part of his brain still went _No, please don't leave me, you're my only anchor tethering me to this time_.

“Did you not want to go to Gemma's christening because we keep putting off our own baby plans and you didn't want to deal with another couple having a kid?” Louis asked.

“What?” Harry almost laughed in surprise. That wasn't _at all_ the direction he thought this conversation would go in. “No, Louis, I…“ he trailed off. “You know I don't care about that. We'll do it in our own time.”

“Will we?” Louis said, almost bitterly.

“What's that supposed to mean? We said we would wait.”

“Yes,” Louis agreed. “We said that. _Months_ ago. But you keep putting everything off, not talking to me about why you're suddenly so reluctant, and I don't know why you keep saying we should wait, because we have waited and we have a surrogate and everything is ready, and…” Louis took a breath. “Sometimes I feel like you don't even want to have a child with me and I wish you would just fucking say it.”

Harry's every instinct screamed to argue, to cry and scream, and reassure Louis that it wasn't him, it was always Harry, always his trauma and his stupid hang-ups and everything that happened to him that was holding him back. But he couldn't, couldn't explain without giving himself away.

“I'm sorry, I know I'm… I'm weird with this stuff. I always need a bit more time and I overthink stuff, but I _absolutely_ want to have a kid with you, I _promise_.”

“Yeah?” Louis asked, looking up at him, still a bit sad, but also _hopeful_.

Harry kept thinking about the fact that they were going to have a child shortly after Gemma was born, a child they'd decided would have Louis as the biological father. Harry kept thinking about Darcy's familiar blue eyes.

It felt like fate was giving him sign after sign here, and he just had to stop resisting. Give in. Maybe, finally, let himself be _happy_.

“Yes,” Harry nodded. “Let's call the surrogate on Monday. I promise I won't make any more excuses. We can do this.”

Louis laughed joyfully and half climbed over the kitchen table to kiss Harry.

“But you have to choose the name,” Harry mumbled against Louis' lips.

Louis was too busy kissing him to remark on the oddness of the request. He happily chose the name Darcy a few months later.

☣ ☣ ☣

_Christmas Day, 2006. Harry is 31. Louis is 34._

“Honey, look, seems like Santa Claus has been here and he brought you lots of presents!” Louis cooed, taking their two-year-old by the hand and guiding her over to the stockings and the pile of presents underneath it.

This was the first Christmas they had enough space for a Christmas tree. Barbara had seen how small their flat had been getting for all three of them as Darcy grew older and had offered them her house. It was getting too big for one person to live in it anyway, she'd said. She wanted to downsize.

Harry hadn't protested too much. He remembered that Darcy had always lived in a house not too far from his childhood home. Another puzzle piece that made sense.

Harry smiled to himself at the excited squeal his daughter let out at the sight of the Christmas tree, babbling a bit. She was getting better at talking every day. He always told Louis she was going to form full sentences any day now. His husband usually indulged him and agreed.

“Pressies!” Darcy exclaimed now, shyly pointing at them.

“Yes, presents, darling,” Harry said, going over to them as well. “You can open them, but carefully, one by one, not all at once, alright?”

She had already taken off though, ripping the paper enthusiastically, before stopping to gaze in awe at the present she just revealed. Harry and Louis both laughed. She made an adorable sight.

“This is the cutest thing I've ever seen,” Harry whispered to his husband.

“Mmh,” Louis agreed softly, putting his arms around him from behind, just holding him.

Darcy ran over to them, proudly showing off her new doll. Harry and Louis aaah'ed and oooh'ed appropriately before Darcy decided it was time to open the next present.

In the evening they were going to go over to Louis' mum's house to celebrate with her, the girls and Barbara, tomorrow they had a friends dinner planned with Niall, Liam and Zayn, a group that had somehow established itself after Louis' time in uni.  
But this morning was just for them, just for their little family. Harry couldn't think of anything he wanted more.

“This is the best Christmas I ever had,” Harry admitted softly after a while, turning around in Louis' arms. Darcy was happily playing in the background, her parents forgotten now that she had unpacked an impressive amount of new toys.

“Yeah?” Louis asked, his eyes sparkling in the dim light coming from the fireplace and the various candles Harry had lit to create a festive atmosphere.

“Yeah,” Harry whispered. “Every year with you just gets better and better. I wouldn't trade it for anything.”

Louis didn't reply, he just kissed him.

☣ ☣ ☣

_February 4th, 2008. Harry is 32, and 3 days._

After not going to Gemma's christening a few years ago, Harry knew this time he had no excuse. Maybe it would be good for him, seeing this baby. Maybe it would feel removed from his own life. At least the anxiety he felt about this moment ever since he realized he knew all the children being born around him would finally be gone, for better or for worse.

He finally couldn't live in denial any longer, finally had to admit to himself that everything was playing out exactly as he remembered it.

“Louis, Harold, I'm so happy you made it,” Anne said when she opened the door, sincerity in her voice. Harry felt bad about not staying in touch after that talk they had a few years ago. Their husbands were casual friends, so Anne must have realized that Harry was purposefully avoiding her at one point or another. She didn't seem to blame him for it. But then, Harry knew that she wasn't one to hold a grudge.

Louis went to make small talk with Des, catching up after not seeing him for a while, and Darcy took off to find the other kids.

Harry though, he headed straight towards the crib that was placed a bit further away from the crowd, probably because the baby was sleeping.

When he reached the small bed to look down at the baby – _Harry_, he reminded himself forcefully, the baby was called _Harry_ – he wasn't sleeping though, instead dopily blinking up at him.

“Go on, you look like you want to hold him. I trust you have enough experience with your daughter that you won't drop him,” Anne chuckled behind him.

“Only if it's really fine with you,” Harry assured her, but he was already reaching for the child, gathering the small bundle in his arms.

Immediately, tears sprang to his eyes, looking at the small person in his arms. Louis was distracted, talking to Des, but Harry still shielded the child from his husband's view, fearing that it would take just one look at these babies' eyes to recognize them.

They were such a familiar shade of green. The same green Harry saw when he looked in the mirror every morning.

“Oh, he's fallen asleep again,” Anne cooed behind him, smiling softly. “Just put him back when you get tired of looking at his adorable face,” she winked at him, then went back to her guests.

“Hey, little one,” Harry whispered, rocking the baby in his arms. Anne was right, he was sleeping again. “You are so lucky, aren't you? Your parents love you very much.” He looked wistfully over to Anne and Des where they were mingling. Both of them were smiling, almost glowing. Between their feet, Gemma was running around, playing catch with Darcy and the other children.

“You know,” Harry started, willing himself not to cry. “You might not live the exact life that your parents imagined for you. And you're going to have a hard time for a while there. But,” he could feel a few tears rolling after all. “It's going to be alright. You're going to end up happy. I promise you.”

His gaze wandered towards Louis, who had now picked up Darcy and was swinging her around so the other kids couldn't catch her. Darcy was shrieking with laughter.

“I promise,” Harry repeated.


	3. The End

_November 4th, 2019. Harry is 44 and 11. Louis is 46._

Harry realized by now why he had never known a lot about Darcy's parents, never even met her other father. It was because he did his best to shield himself from the child. He had accepted this reality, this life long ago, but the thought of seeing himself too often was too terrifying to think about, not when the child was so hauntingly similar to the face that used to look back at him in the mirror.

He had also watched enough movies on time travel by now that he knew the most important rule was always _Don't talk to yourself._ He figured, since he had probably broken about every other time travel rule there was already, this one was one he should really follow.

Every single thing so far had happened exactly as he remembered it, so all the theories about alternate timelines he came up with over the years seemed to be wrong. This clearly wasn't _Back to the Future_. This was _Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_.

And, because he couldn't remember ever meeting his older self as a kid, he was trying his best to make it stay that way.

His system of trying not to run into little Harry worked well, up to a certain point. He managed to stay out of his younger self's life, but in doing so, he accidentally isolated himself from his friends, from his husband, especially in the past few months.

Louis, probably the most understanding person on the planet, couldn't, wouldn't understand why Harry didn't want to be present at Anne and Des' family parties, didn't like to pick up Darcy from school, didn't even like to go grocery shopping.

On some level, he had always understood Harry's problems in a way that never needed explaining. Harry wasn't good with words and he didn't need them for Louis. He knew Louis didn't think he was just staying home out of rudeness, Louis knew there was something wrong. It almost made it worse, in a way. To see the helplessness in Louis' eyes when he knew he couldn't help was worse than it would have been if Louis had just screamed at him.

Harry wished there was a way to make him understand that didn't involve flat-out stating _I travelled through time._ Still, he couldn't help but wish for Louis' help, especially now that Eric had vanished – something Harry didn't know how to stop but was still wondering about because he certainly didn't meet him in 1986 – and he knew (and _dreaded_) what was going to happen soon.

☣ ☣ ☣

The evening his younger self was going to disappear, Harry planned on locking every door and every window, ignoring the storm outside, just hoping it would pass. Somehow, there was still a part of him that wanted the whole thing to be a dream, that wanted young Harry Edward Styles to not be him, to not disappear. Young Harry was going to stay here and grow up with his family, do something completely different with his life than he had done.

He gulped, thinking about how in that reality, Harry would also never meet Louis. They would never have Darcy.

Darcy… A small detail of that night was fighting itself to the forefront of his mind, but he couldn't quite grasp it until he saw Darcy leave the house in her yellow raincoat that morning. That coat… She was going to wear this tonight. She was also going to wear this when she guided him towards the caves. He tried to shake his head to get rid of that thought, but something wasn't sitting right with him. _How_ had Darcy known where that tunnel was? Why did she bring him there? Did she know what was going to happen?

His questions were answered a few hours later when Louis had left for work at the power station – a place Harry was growing more and more reluctant to see him go to these days because it seemed so connected to the caves – and Darcy stumbled through the door. She was still wearing her raincoat, but somehow Harry knew, without a doubt, that this wasn't the same Darcy that had left the house this morning. This Darcy had a haunted look on her face, her hair was undone, something she almost never did unless she carefully styled it for a night out, and her coat was dirtier than before.

“Hi Dad,” she said, and Harry could almost hear it in her tone. He wasn't going to like what she had to say.

“Hi darling,” he let out the words in a breathy exhale. “Are you alright?” She didn't quite look alright, but Harry was afraid to say that, afraid to ask something he didn't want to hear the answer to.

“Yeah, I'm fine,” she stated shortly. _A lie_, he could hear it in her voice, but he didn't press.

“What are you doing here?” he asked softly instead, making it clear that he knew she was from the future. She didn't look surprised at that reveal.

“I know about you. Who you are. What happened to you.” She didn't sound angry as she said it, just a bit shaken up, as if she had only recently learned that particular piece of information and was still learning to deal with it. Harry had dealt with it almost his entire life, but he was still shocked to see her here, the proof that this wasn't only affecting him, the proof that this was bigger than a single scared kid climbing through a cave.

“I'm here to stop you,” Darcy announced. Her voice had stopped wavering. “If Harry doesn't go missing, if he just says home tonight, none of this will happen. I can make everything stop.”

The plan she was proposing was almost taken straight out of a younger Harry's fantasies. Not travelling through time. Getting to be with his family. Getting to grow up normal.

But that was impossible. It had always been impossible. He knew that now.

“You have to let me go, darling,” Harry said gently, surprised at the conviction in his own tone. He hadn't been sure about this decision until right this moment, but now, looking at his daughter, he knew he needed to do everything to protect her. He couldn't risk her not being born. No matter how this all worked, Darcy was the most important part. By sending young Harry back in time, he would save his daughter.

“In fact,” he added, suddenly knowing and dreading what he had to do now. “There's something else you need to do for me.”

Darcy looked at him with wide eyes while he explained it, the tunnels, the cave, his younger self following the yellow raincoat.

“No,” she choked out when he was done. “No, I can't do that. I can't be the cause of all of this. I'm trying to stop it.” She wasn't crying but her voice was full of held-back emotions, like she was one push away from spilling them over. There was nothing that Harry wanted more than to comfort her, to promise her everything would be alright, like he had always done. But there was only one way it was going to be alright.

“I know you are, baby,” he soothed her, feeling the tears gather in his own eyes. “But this is the only way. The only way to keep our family safe, the only way everything that is supposed to happen will happen. I've had a good life,” he promised her. “And I can't promise you that this is the best choice for everyone, that it is going to stop whatever is going on in Holmes Chapel. But it is the best choice for me. For our family.”

She stared at him for a while longer, silently crying. She clung to his arm, pressing herself to his side, like she had done as a kid. _Our little koala_, Louis always said. After a while Darcy finally nodded, wiping her tears away.

They both looked at each other for a moment longer, both having realized that there was no other choice. They both had nothing left to say, no comfort left to give. He didn't ask her what time she was from or what had happened to cause the exhaustion he could see on her face, she didn't ask what he had lost by following her into that cave all those years ago.

“I have to go,” she choked out after a few more moments of silence, and Harry pulled her into a bone-crushing hug, not knowing in that moment if he could really let her leave.

“Take care of yourself, baby,” he finally said with a kiss to her forehead, hoping against reason that an older version of himself and Louis were still around in her own time to take care of her instead.

Darcy just nodded, looked at him one last time, and then she was gone.

Harry glanced at the time. 6pm. A younger Darcy was going to meet up with her friends in the woods soon, having made up an excuse about studying at a friend's house this morning. He ignored the pit in his stomach, and sat down at the kitchen table, right under the big clunky clock. A few hours left.

☣ ☣ ☣

_November 11th, 2019. Harry is 44. Louis is 46._

Louis finally figured it out a week after Harry's younger self went missing. Harry found him staring at the _Missing person: Harry Edward Styles_ posters all the time, on his way to work, on the fence in front of their house, while grocery shopping. There was something in his eyes, a recognition that hadn't been there before. It was only a matter of time before he connected the dots.

Harry tried to prolong the inevitable as long as possible, pretending nothing was wrong, but he should have known that wasn't his husband's style.

One evening, while Darcy was at a friend's house, and they were making dinner, Louis just calmly announced, his back towards Harry, “I know he was you.”

Harry dropped the salad bowl he'd been holding. The bang it made when it fell was loud against the quiet that seemed to have settled over the room suddenly. “What?” he asked faintly.

Louis turned around to look at him.

“I've never quite figured it out, you know. The thing that was off about you. The thing you didn't want to say. At first I thought childhood trauma, like Barbara and the teachers did, but something wasn't quite right, something didn't quite fit. It seemed to be alright for a while and get worse again in recent years and I couldn't figure it out, I couldn't figure out what had changed.”

“Oh?” Harry asked, just to say _something_, but almost no sound came out. His mouth felt dry.

Louis, who had looked angry a few seconds before, deflated. “I get it, you know. Why you didn't tell me. It was the right choice. I probably wouldn't have believed it.”

“How did you find out now?” Harry whispered, afraid to step closer to Louis.

“I've picked Darcy up from school that day. And Harry – _you_ – I swear he looked just like you did, 33 years ago. The exact same clothes, the hairstyle. I hadn't seen him a while before that, so I never quite realized, but unless you fathered a child you didn't tell me about…”

Harry blanched at that, the thought wrong on _so many _levels, but luckily Louis just smiled weakly. “Sorry, bad joke. I knew it wasn't that. I somehow knew it was you. I know my first thought shouldn't have been time travel, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. And then I went home to look at some old pictures of ours. It was you. There's no doubt about it.”

Then he chuckled, a bit incredulously. “I should have known, really. Remember the first time we met? You asked me about the date. You even asked me what year it was. I can't believe I didn't put the pieces together until now.”

“Louis, I'm sorry,” Harry tried to say, growing frantic, “I tried to tell you, I swear, I just-”

“Baby,” Louis said softly, finally walking towards him, pulling him close. Harry almost laughed in relief. Louis still wanted to touch him, even after everything that had just happened. He didn't think Harry was crazy. He wasn't walking out.

“In a way, I am relieved. I'm relieved to finally know, to finally _understand_. Remember my proposal? When you asked me if I could still marry you, even if I didn't know all of you?”

Harry almost choked on a laugh. Of course he remembered. How could he ever _forget_ one of the happiest memories of his life?

“And I promised you that I would. I'm still keeping that promise. This is just another part of you that I love.” Louis smiled at him now.

“Our whole life, I always felt like I was the one pushing, talking you into things, being one step ahead of you. Getting to be with you, marrying you, even having Darcy. It never seemed like you didn't want these things, just that you had to work through a whole bag of issues first before you could accept that you deserved them. I'm telling you now, Harry, you deserved every single good thing that ever happened to you. You're the best person I know and you've done the _best _with the situation you've been in. I think it's time to forgive yourself,” Louis whispered.

Harry shook his head, desperately.

“I could have done more, I could have tried harder to stop all of this, to make sense of this. But I always just wanted to forget, just wanted to move on. I've only ever thought about this whole thing in regards to _me_, how I could fix my part in it. I never even contemplated saving Eric and whoever else.” He paused. “My mum's brother... something happened to him as well. I don't know what. I just know that something weird is going on here and it might be bigger than me.” He paused, trying to catch his breath before his panic could overwhelm him.

“I didn't know it was so big, Louis,” he whispered then. “I didn't know that it wasn't just a freak accident years ago. I didn't know our daughter could get involved in it. I thought it was over.”

“It's okay, darling,” Louis said, pulling him over to the couch, probably sensing that Harry couldn't talk any more right now. Harry buried his face in his neck, just breathing him in, thankful he was still getting to do this.

☣ ☣ ☣

They sat together like that for a few hours, Harry telling the full story for the first time in his life. It was going slowly, he didn't remember every detail and he couldn't make sense of most of it, but Louis didn't interrupt him, just held him tighter when he reached certain parts, like the night he broke his leg in the caves while trying to find the tunnel, the day Louis kissed him and he didn't know whether or not he was allowed to have him.

The way he worried about Darcy every second of her life and now his fears seemed to be coming true. She was at a friend's house right now, and Harry could almost _feel_ her pulling away since the night she, Gemma and the others had lost Harry in the forest. It was a trauma he wished he could have spared his daughter but he didn't know how to keep her out of it.

Louis was the most torn up when Harry told him about Darcy's role in all of this, that he wasn't quite sure what would happen to her yet, but that she was involved in all of this somehow. That she had shown him the way through the tunnel because Harry asked her to.

“I feel so guilty,” Harry whispered. “Some days, I almost want to try and find that tunnel somehow and bring him back. His… Anne… _My_ mum. I can't imagine what she must be going through-”

Louis pressed a hand to Harry's mouth with way more force than necessary. His hand was trembling.

“Don't say that,” Louis choked out. “Don't even joke about it. Don't you dare. Don't you dare take away the best thing that's ever happened to me. I couldn't bear it.” He grabbed both of Harry's hands in his, just like he always did when there was a crisis to be managed. Sometimes, Harry thought, without that grounding touch he might have already drifted away, into some corner of his mind, where the thought of time travel and unchangeable destinies made him lose touch with reality.

“You listen to me, Harry Edward Styles.” Harry couldn't help the tears springing to his eyes when Louis used his full, _real_ name for the first time in his life, something he wasn't able to do at his proposal or their wedding. “I like to think I'm a good person. People – mostly you – used to say that I'm kind and empathetic-”

“You are, you always will be,” Harry interrupted him, wide-eyed.

Louis didn't loosen his grip on Harry's hands though. “But this time, I'm going to be selfish. It may be the most selfish decision I have ever made, but I like to think that it's the only one I could ever make. Even if there was a way to bring young Harry back, to save the entire Styles family a lot of pain, I am _not_ going to let you go, do you hear me? Never. I _need_ you. 14-year old me, meeting you 33 years go, _he_ needs you. _Our daughter_ needs you.” Harry could barely make out Louis' face through the fog of tears that suddenly clouded his vision, but he saw his bottom lip tremble as well.

“So I don't care what it takes. You will stay there, with my stupid 14-year-old self who wants nothing but to love you and take care of you. I don't know why this happened. Or is happening. I don't know anything about all of this, and if the proof wasn't standing right in front of me, I wouldn't believe it. But you have to promise me,” Louis was crying now, his voice only coming out in bits and pieces between sobs. “You have to fucking promise me that you won't try to change it. Don't change us. Because this, this right here,” he squeezed Harry's hands again. “This is the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“Louis,” Harry choked out, kissing him, only a press of their mouths together, tasting salt. “I'm sorry I said that. I love you. I love you. Sometimes, I thought it may be better… I thought it may be better for all of you, if I left.” He tried to wipe away Louis' tears, but in doing so more of his own followed.

“I promise I'm going to try. I'm going to try everything in my power to stay with you. With Darcy. That's all I can promise. It's us against the world. I promise.”

Louis chuckled wetly. “That's good enough for me.”

He folded Harry up in his arms, like he had done so many times when they were younger. “Us against the world,” he murmured into Harry's hair.

Harry wasn't sure about much. Not the time travel or what it all meant, not about the other missing kids, not about what would happen to Holmes Chapel in the next few months, even days, but he was sure about this: he believed in the truth of that sentence with his whole heart.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!  
I know the ending seems a bit open, but I hope the Harry/Louis part of the story has come to a satisfying conclusion. In my head they lived happily ever after, but to be fair, I don't quite know how Dark as a show is going to end, so the only thing I can promise is that they stayed together the whole time.  
If you haven't seen the show before, it might seem like I left a lot of loose strings, for example I never explained what happened to Eric (Erik in the show), Anne's brother (Mads in the show), or talked about what happened to Harry's family after he went missing in 2019... For that, I'm afraid you're going to have to watch Dark or imagine your own answers ;)  
I'm always here for any remaining questions about this universe's Harry or Louis, however, yell at me about them in the comments please!
> 
> Title taken from "Goodbye" by Apparat.  
You can leave comments or kudos here, or reblog the [fic post](https://lookslikefairytale.tumblr.com/post/189040435790/fic-title-for-neither-never-nor-ever-pairing), if you liked it!
> 
> (I'm here on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/fairytalelights) and on [Tumblr](https://lookslikefairytale.tumblr.com), if you wanna say hi.)


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